HONEST  JOHN  VANE, 


A  STORY. 


BY 

.   J.  W,    DE   FOREST, 

AUTHOR  OF  KATH  BEAUMONT,  THE  WETHBREL  AFFAIR,  OVERLAND, 
MISS  RAVENAL'S  CONVERSION,  ETC. 


NEW    HA  VEX,   COXX.  : 
RICHMOND    &    PATTEN. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1874, 

BY  RICHMOND  &  PATTEN, 
in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


The  Case,  Lockwood  &  Brainard  Co. 

HARTFORD,    CONN. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


I.  HONEST  JOHN  AS  A  LOVER, 3 

II.  HOPELESS  IN  LOVE,  BUT  HOPEFUL  IN  POLITICS, 13 

III.  RUNNING  FOR  CONGRESS  AND  WINNING  A  SMILE, '  24 

IV.  REPRESENTATIVE  VANE'S  EMINENT  FITNESS, 36 

V.  OLYMPIAN  ENCOURAGEMENTS, 46 

/     VI.  A  SECOND  SHOT  HITS  THE  MARK, 54 

VII.  MAKING  THE  ENDS  MEET  IN  WASHINGTON, 63 

VIII.  A  SPECIAL  LEGISLATOR  AND  HIS  AGENT, 72 

IX.  A  SPECIAL  LEGISLATOR'S  VIEWS  OF  CONGRESSIONAL  USEFUL 
NESS,  83 

X.  HONEST  JOHN  RESISTS  TEMPTATION 93 

XI.  A  DISCONTENTED  WIFE, 106 

XII.  AN  EMINENT  SENATOR, ng 

XIII.  RUNNING  IN  DEBT  AND  ASKING  ADVICE,.., 129 

XIV.  PAINFUL  ECONOMY  AND  ANOTHER  TEMPTATION, 144 

XV.  HONESTY  IN  DECADENCE, 152 

XVI.  SATAN'S  MESSENGER  TRIUMPHANT, 162 

XVII.  WEATHERCOCK  JOHN, 172 

XVI 1 1.  A  CARCASS  FATTENING  ON  CARCASSES, i8a 

XIX.  CAMPAIGN   LIBS  NAILED  TO  THE  COUNTER, 192 

XX.  A  COMING  SHADOW  OF  PUNISHMENT, 201 

XXI.  LOVE  MY  WIFE,  LOVE  ME, 214 

XXII.  DODGING  AND  SKULKING, 227 

XXIII.  THE  INVESTIGATION, 237 

XXIV.  WEATHERCOCK  JOHN  TRIUMPHANT, 247 


M232227 


HONEST  JOHN  VANE. 


CHAPTER   I. 

ONE  of  the  most  fateful  days  of  John  Vane's 
life  was  the  day  on  which  he  took  board  with 
that  genteel  though  decayed  lady,  the  widow  of  a 
wholesale  New  York  grocer  who  had  come  out  at 
the  little  end  of  the  horn  of  plenty,  and  the 
mother  of  two  of  the  prettiest  girls  in  Slowburgh, 

Mrs.  Renssaelaer  Smiles. 

• 

Within  a  week  he  was  in  a  state  of  feeling 
which  made  him  glance  frequently  at  the  eld 
est  of  these  young  ladies,  and  within  a  month  he 
would  have  jumped  at  a  chance  to  kiss  the  ground 
upon  which  she  trod.  In  the  interval  he  ventured 
various  little  attentions,  intended  to  express  his 
growing  admiration  and  interest,  such  as  opening 
the  door  for  her  when  she  left  the  dining-room, 


< 


4  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

taking  off  his  hat  with  a  flourish  when  he  met 
her  in  the  hall,  joining  her  now  and  then  in  the 
street,  "just  for  a  block  or  two,"  and  once  tremu 
lously  presenting  her  with  a  bouquet. 

He  would  have  been  glad  to  run  much  more 
boldly  than  this  in  the  course  of  courtship,  but 
his  heart  was  in  such  a  tender-footed  condition 
that  he  could  not  go  otherwise  than  softly.  In 
his  worshiping  eyes  Miss  Olympia  Smiles  was  not 
only  a  lovely  phenomenon,  but  also  an  august  and 
even  an  absolutely  imposing  one.  Notwithstand 
ing  that  she  was  the  daughter  of  his  landlady,  and 
held  but  a  modest  social  position  even  in  our  un 
pretentious  little  city,  she  had  an  unmistakable 
air  of  fashionable  breeding  and  boarding-school 
finish,  such  as  might  be  expected  of  a  lady  who 
had  passed  her  aarly  youth  in  opulence.  More 
over,  she  drew  about  her  an  admiring  bevy  of  our 
university  undergraduates,  who,  by  their  genteel 
fopperies  and  classic  witticisms,  made  Vane  feel 
ill  at  ease  in  their  presence,  although  he  strove 
manfully  in  secret  to  despise  them  as  mere  boys. 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  5 

Finally,  she  was  handsome  and  impressively  so, 
tall,  shapely,  and  grand  in  figure,  superb  and  even 
haughty  in  carriage,  with  a  rich  brunette  coloring 
which  made  him  think  of  Cleopatra,  and  with 
glowing  dark  eyes  which  pierced  even  to  his 
joints  and  marrow. 

The  one  circumstance  which  encouraged  Vane 
to  aspire  after  this  astral  being  was  the  fact  that 
she  seemed  older  than  most  of  the  undergraduate 
planets  who  revolved  about  her,  throwing  him  for 
the  present  into  sorrowful  eclipse.  He  thought 
that  she  must  be  twenty-three,  and  he  sometimes 
trusted  that  she  might  be  twenty-five,  or  perhaps 
twenty-seven.  At  the  same  time  he  so  reverenced 
her  that  he  could  not  have  been  tortured  into 
believing  that  she  was  a  veteran  flirt,  trained  to 
tough  coquetry  in  many  a  desperate  skirmish. 
Often  and  often  had  Olympia  "  sat  up "  with  a 
young  man  till  after  midnight,  and  then  gone  up 
stairs  and  passed  her  mother's  bedroom  door  on 
her  hands  and  knees,  not  in  penance  and  mortifi 
cation  of  spirit,  but  in  mere  anxiety  to  escape  a 
lecture. 


6  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

Of  these  melodramatic  scenes  John  Vane  knew 
nothing,  and  desired  to  know  nothing.  We  must 
add  also,  as  indicative  of  his  character  and  breed 
ing,  that,  had  he  been  minutely  informed  of  them, 
he  would -have  thought  none  the  less  of  Miss 
Smiles.  In  the  first  place  he  was  so  fascinated 
by  her  that  he  would  have  pardoned  almost  any 
folly  or  imprudence  in  her  bygone  history.  In 
the  second  place,  he  had  been  brought  up  in  a 
simple  stratum  of  society,  where  girls  were  allowed 
large  liberties  in  sparking,  even  to  the  extent  of 
arms  around  the  waists  and  much  kissing,  with 
out  incurring  prudish  condemnation.  Indeed,  so 
far  was  he  from  being  fastidious  in  these  matters, 
that,  when  he  heard  that  Olympia  had  been  en 
gaged  to  one  or  more  students,  and  that  these 
juvenile  bonds  had  been  promptly  severed,  he 
was  rather  pleased  and  cheered  by  the  informa 
tion  than  otherwise. 

"  She  must  be  about  sick  of  those  young  jacka 
napes,"  he  hopefully  inferred.  "  She  must  be 
about  ready  to  take  up  with  a  grown  man,  who 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  7 

knows  what  he  wants,  and  has  some  notion  of 
sticking  to  a  bargain,  and  is  able  to  do  the  decent 
thing  in  the  way  of  supporting  her." 

John  Vane  was  himself,  both  in  person  and  in 
repute,  no  despicable  match.  As  may  have  been 
already  guessed  by  such  readers  as  are  fitted  to 
apprehend  his  character  and  find  instruction  in 
his  history,  he  was  one  of  those  heroes  of  in 
dustry  and  conquerors  of  circumstances  known 
as  self-made  men,  whose  successes  are  so  full  of 
encouragement  to  the  millions  born  into  medioc 
rity,  and  whom,  consequently,  those  millions  de 
light  to  honor. 

Had  he  really  fabricated  himself,  whether  we 
speak  of  his  physical  structure  or  of  his  emotional 
nature,  he  would  have  accomplished  a  rather 
praiseworthy  job  of  creation.  Very  few  better 
looking  men  or  kinder  hearted  men  have  ever 
paraded  the  streets  of  Slowburgh  in  Masonic 
caparisons.  Justly  proportioned,  with  ample 
withers,  a  capacious  barrel,  and  limbs  that  were 
almost  majestic,  he  stood  nearly  six  feet  high  in 


8  HONEST    JOHN    VANE. 

his  stockings,  weighed  full  two  hundred  pounds 
in  the  same,  and  was  altogether  an  uncommonly 
fine  animal.  It  is  true  ihat,  to  use  his  own  jovial 
phrase,  he  "  ran  a  little  too  much  to  blubber  for 
comfort";  but  it  was  disposed  so  becomingly  and 
carried  so  easily,  that  it  did  not  prevent  him  from 
moving  with  grace;  while  even  his  political  ene 
mies  had  to  admit  that  it  conspicuously  enhanced 
his  dignity,  and  justified  his  admirers  in  talking 
of  him  for  governor. 

His  face,  too,  usually  passed  for  handsome  ;  it 
was  fairly  regular  in  feature,  and  of  a  fresh  blonde 
color  like  that  of  a  healthy  baby  ;  moreover,  it 
had  the  spiritual  embellishment  of  a  ready,  cour 
teous,  and  kindly  smile.  It  was  only  the  fastidi 
ously  aristocratic  and  the  microscopically  cultiva 
ted  who  remarked  of  this  large  and  well-moulded 
figure-head  that  it  lacked  an  air  of  high-breeding 
and  was  slightly  vacuous  in  expression.  These 
severe  critics  found  the  genial  blue  eyes  which 
fascinated  humble  people  as  uninteresting  as  if 
they  had  been  made  of  china-ware.  They  hinted, 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  9 

in  short,  that  John  Vane's  beauty  was  pureiy 
physical,  and  had  no  moral  or  intellectual  signifi 
cance. 

To  this  height  of  sentimental  fault-finding  Miss 
Olympia  Smiles  had  not  attained.  New-Yorker 
by  birth  though  she  was,  and  polished  by  long- 
continued  friction  against  undergraduate  pundits, 
she  was  not  a  soul  of  the  last  and  most  painful 
finish.  She  could  not  see  but  that  Mr.  Vane  was, 
from  every  point  of  view,  sufficiently  handsome. 
Still  she  did  not  feel  much  pleased  with  his 
obvious  admiration,  nor  desire  at  all  to  lure  him 
on  to  the  point  of  love-making.  There  were  im 
perfections  in  him  which  grated  upon  her  sensi 
bilities,  far  as  these  were  from  being  feverishly 
delicate. 

In  the  first  place,  she  found  his  conversation 
rather  uninteresting  and  distinctly  "common." 
He  could  only  talk  freely  of  politics,  business,  and 
the  ordinary  news  of  the  day ;  he  had  no  sparkles 
of  refined  wit  and  no  warm  flashes  of  poesy  ;  he 
was  a  little  given  to  coarse  chaffing  and  to  slang. 


IO  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

For  instance,  he  one  day  said  to  his  vis-a-vis  at 
table,  "Harris,  please  to  scull  that  butter  over  this 
way";  and,  what  made  the  matter  worse,  he  said 
it  with  a  self-satisfied  smile,  as  though  the  phrase 
were  original  and  irresistibly  humorous.  It  was 
unpleasant  also  to  hear  him  remark  every  morn 
ing,  alluding  to  the  severity  of  the  weather,  that 
"  the  thermometer  was  on  a  bender."  Such  meta 
phors  might  "do  in  students  and  other  larkish, 
agreeable  youngsters  ;  but  in  a  mature  man,  who 
pretended  to  be  marriageable,  they  argued  dull 
ness  or  vulgarity.  Finally,  Olympia  plainly 
gathered  from  Mr.  Vane's  daily  discourse  that  he 
was  pretty  ignorant  of  science,  history,  literature, 
and  other  such  genteel  subjects. 

But  there  was  a  much  more  serious  defect  in 
this  handsome  man,  considered  as  a  possible  ad 
mirer.  He  was  a  widower,  and  a  widower  with 
incumbrances.  He  had  a  wife  thirty  years  old  in 
the  graveyard,  and  he  had  two  children  of  eight 
and  ten  who  were  not  there.  It  was  annoying  to 
Olympia  to  see  him  help  this  boy  and  this  girl  to 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  I  I 

buttered  slapjacks,  and  then  bend  upon  herself  a 
glance  of  undisguisable,  tender  appetite.  Had  he 
rolled  in  his  carriage  and  resided  in  a  mansion  on 
Saltonstall  Avenue,  she  might  have  been  able  to 
put  up  with  his  weeds  and  his  paternity  ;  but  in 
a  mere  manufacturer  of  refrigerators,  whose  busi 
ness  was  by  no  means  colossal,  these  trappings  of 
woe  and  pledges  to  society  were  little  less  than 
repulsive. 

"  I  can  never,  never  let  him  speak  to  me  about 
it,"  said  the  young  lady,  with  excitement,  when 
her  mother  hinted  to  her  that  Mr.  Vane  seemed 
to  be  drifting  toward  an  offer ;  "  he  is  so  com 


mon: 


"  You  must  get  married  some  time,  I  suppose," 
sighed  Mrs.  Smiles,  whose  pride  had  had  a  fall  as 
splintering  as  that  of  Humpty  Dumpty,  and  who 
found  it  hard  work  to  support  two  stylish  daugh 
ters.  "  Men  who  are  not  common  are  rare  in  our 
present  circle." 

"  I  would  rather  be  an  old  maid  than  take  a 
widower  with  two  children,"  asserted  Olympia. 

"  But  how  would  the  old  maid  live  in  case  her 


12  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

mother  should  be  removed  ? "  asked  the  parent, 
pained  in  heart  by  her  own  plain-dealing,  but  feel 
ing  that  it  was  called  for. 

The  spinster  who  had  never  spun  nor  done  any 
other  remunerative  labor  could  not  answer  this 
question.  Presently  it  might  have  been  observed 
that  a  tear  was  rolling  down  her  cheek.  Hard, 
hard  indeed  is  the  condition  of  a  proud  girl  who 
sees  herself  encompassed  by  the  thorny  hedges 
of  poverty,  with  no  escape  therefrom  but  a  de 
tested  match, — a  match  as  disagreeable  to  smell 
at  as  one  of  the  brimstone  species. 

"  Don't  throw  away  this  chance  without  fairly 
considering  it,"  continued  the  widow.  "Mr. 
Vane  is  a  prosperous  man,  and  a  growing  man 
every  way.  He  has  good  manners,  barring  some 
slang  phrases.  He  likes  to  talk  about  sensible 
subjects  and  to  inform  himself.  Ten  years  hence 
you  may  find  him  your  superior  and  have  reason 
to  be  proud  of  him.  A  clever  wife  would  help 
him  forward  wonderfully.  He  is  a  man  that  the 
right  kind  of  a  woman  could  make  over  and  make 
fit  for  any  circle." 


CHAPTER   II. 

MRS.  Smiles  was  so  deeply  interested  in  this 
subject  that  she  talked  much  .more  firmly 
and  impressively  than  was  her  wont. 

Her  manner,  however,  was  pathetically  mild 
and  meek,  as  of  a  woman  who  is  accustomed  to 
be  trampled  upon  by  misfortune,  and  of  a  mother 
who  has  learned  to  bow  down  to  her  children. 

She  was  a  somewhat  worn  creature ;  originally, 
indeed,  of  fair  outlines  both  physical  and  spiritual ; 
but  considerably  rubbed  out  and  defaced  by  the 
storms  of  adversity.  She  reminded  one  of  those 
statues  which  travelers  have  seen  in  Italian 
court-yards,  which  were  once,  no  doubt,  rounded, 
vigorous,  clean-cut,  sparkling,  and  every  way 
comely,  but  which,  being  made,  of  too  soft  a 
marble,  or  beaten  upon  too  long  by  winds  and 
rains,  have  lost  distinctness  of  lineament  and 
brightness  of  color.  "  A  good  liquor  at  the  start, 


14  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

but  too  much  matured  somehow  'r  nuther,"  judged 
one  of  her  boarders,  Mr.  Jonas  Damson,  the 
grocer. 

Yet  this  seemingly  dilapidated  and  really  totter 
ing  woman  was  the  entire  support,  financially  and 
morally,  of  two  healthy  daughters.  Why?  Be 
cause  she  was  a  relic  of  the  time  when  ladies 
were  not  mere  dandies  ;  when  work  steadily  done 
and  responsibility  loyally  borne  trained  their 
characters  into  vigor ;  when  they,  like  their  men, 
were  producers  as  well  as  consumers.  Mrs. 
Smiles  was  not  as  highly  educated  as  Olympia ; 
she  could  not  talk,  whether  wisely  or  foolishly,  of 
so  many  subjects ;  but  industrially  and  morally 
she  was  worth  six  of  her. 

Well,  as  this  sorrowfully  forethoughted  mother 
had  foreseen,  the  proposal  of  marriage  came  at 
last.  John  Vane  popped  the  question  with  the 
terror  and  anguish  and  confusion  natural  to  a 
self-made  man  who  is  madly  in  love  with  a  "born 
lady."  His  tender  heart,  hysterical  with  affec 
tionate  fear  and  desire,  nearly  pounded  the  breath 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  15 

out  of  him  while  he  uttered  his  message.  What 
he  said  he  was  not  then  sanely  conscious  of,  and 
could  never  afterwards  distinctly  remember.  He 
may  have  spoken  as  beautiful  words  as  lover  ever 
did,  or  he  may  have  expressed  himself  in  the 
slang  which  Olympia  found  so  repellent.  But 
five  minutes  later  he  had  forgotten  the  most  mo 
mentous  speech  of  his  life ;  the  particulars  of  it 
had  departed  from  him  as  irretrievably  as  the 
breath  in  which  they  had  been  uttered ;  they  were 
as  completely  gone  as  the  odors  of  last  year's 
flowers.  Olympia's  response,  however,  remained 
engraven  upon  his  soul  with  sad  distinctness';  it 
was  as  plain  as,  "  Sacred  to  the  memory  of,"  cut 
into  the  marble  of  a  gravestone. 

"  Mr.  Vane,  I  sincerely  respect  you,  and  I  thank 
you  for  this  mark  of  your  esteem,  but  I  cannot 
be  your  wife,"  was  the  decorous  but  unsympa 
thetic  form  of  service  which  she  read  over  his 
hopes. 

He  essayed  to  implore,  to  argue  his  suit,  to  ask 
why,  etc.  But  she  would  not  hear  him.  "  It 


l6  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

cannot  be,"  she  interrupted,  hastily  and  firmly;" 
"I  tell  you,  Mr.  Vane,  it  cannot  be." 

And  so,  what  seemed  to  him  his  ghost,  went 
out  from  her  presence,  to  walk  the  earth  in  cheer 
less  unrest. 

Of  course,  however,  there  was  yet  hope  in  the 
depths  of  his  wretchedness,  like  a  living  though 
turbid  spring  of  water  in  the  bottom  of  a  ruined 
well.  He  still  wanted  this  girl ;  meant  to  bring 
her  somehow  to  favor  his  suit ;  trusted  in  cheer 
ful  moments  that  she  would  yet  be  his.  How 
should  he  move  her  ?  His  friend,  Mr.  Jonas 
Damson,  to  whom  he  confided  his  venture  and 
shipwreck,  said  to  him,  "John,  you  must  show 
her  your  dignified  side.  Don't  stay  here  and 
look  melted  butter  at  her,  and  cry  in  your  coffee. 
Don't  'make  a  d — d  fool  of  yourself,  John,  right 
under  her  nose.  If  you  can't  keep  a  good  face 
on  the  business  here,  quit  the  house.  Show  her 
your  independence.  Let  her  see  you  can  live 
without  her.  Sorry  to  lose  you,  John,  from  your 
old  chair ;  but  as  a  friend,  I  say,  look  up  another 
hash  house." 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  I/ 

So,  despite  the  plaintive  reluctance  of  Mrs. 
Smiles,  and  despite  his  own  desire  to  gaze  daily 
upon  his  fair  tormentor,  the  rejected  lover  chang 
ed  residence.  A  rival  boarding-house  received 
John  Vane  and  his  two  children,  and  his  weekly 
payment  of  forty  dollars.  Next,  after  a  little 
period  of  nerveless  stupor,  he  rushed  into  the 
arena  of  politics.  A  politician  of  some  local  note, 
he  was  already  able  to  send  to  the  polls  a  "crowd" 
of  the  artisans  whom  he  employed,  or  who  knew 
him  favorably  as  an  old  comrade  in  handicraft, 
and  was  consequently  a  sure  candidate  for  the  city 
council  from  his  own  ward,  and  a  tolerably  strong 
one  for  the  State  legislature. 

Happily  for  his  reawakened  ambition,  there  had 
been  a  scandal  of  late  among  the  "men  inside 
politics."  The  member  of  Congress  from  the  dis 
trict  of  Slowburgh  had  been  charged,  and  proved 
guilty  too,  of  taking  a  one  thousand  dollar  bribe 
from  the  "Gulf  of  Mexico  and  Caribbean  Sea 
Steam  Navigation  Company."  Some  old  war- 
horses  of  the  party,  after  vainly  trying  to  hush 


1 8  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

the  matter  up,  had  decided  to  throw  the  Honor 
able  James  Bummer  overboard. 
/  "Bummer  never  could  run  again,"  they  unani 
mously  neighed  and  snorted.  "  To  try  to  carry 
Jim  Bummer  would  break  down  the  organization. 
Jim  must  take  a  back  seat,  at  least  until  this 
noise  about  him  blows  over,  and  give  some  fresh 
man  a  chance.  A  man,  by  George,  that  would 
cut  the  cherry-tree,  and  then  tell  of  it,  was  n't  fit 
to  guide  the  destinies  of  his  country." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  personal  friends  of 
Bummer,  that  is  to  say,  the  men  whom  he  had 
put  into  "soft  places,"  or  who  had  shared  his 
"perks,"  supported  him  for  many  cogent  reasons. 
They  charged  his  enemies  with  encouraging  the 
Copperheads  and  the  Ku-Klux ;  with  dishonoring 
American  institutions  in  the  face  of  monarchical 
Europe  and  of  high  Heaven, — both  apparently 
hostile  countries ;  worst  of  all,  and  what  was  in 
sisted  upon  with  the  bitterest  vehemence,  they 
charged  them  with  demoralizing  the  party,  as  if 
Bummer  had  moralized  it.  They  denied  the 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  1 9 

bribe  doubly :  first,  they  asserted  that  their  man 
had  accepted  no  stock  in  said  Steam  Navigation 
Company;  second,  they  affirmed  that  he  had  as 
much  right  to  own  stock  in  it  as  any  other  citi 
zen.  They  were  stubborn  and  very  uproariously 
wrathful,  and  not  feeble  in  point  of  following.  It 
was  evident  that  the  battle  which  must  take  place 
in  the  nominating  caucus  would  be  very  fiercely 
contested.  The  friends  of  reform  were  forced  to 
concede  that,  if  they  did  not  put  up  a  candidate 
of  admittedly  high  character  and  of  great  per 
sonal  popularity,  the  meretricious  veteran  who 
now  carried  the  banner  of  the  district  would  con 
tinue  to  carry  it.  The  whole  momentous  strug 
gle,  too,  must  center  in  the  aforesaid  caucus.  Of 
course,  after  this  mysterious  agency  had  decided 
who  should  head  the  party,  no  good  Republican 
could  "go  back  on"  the  nominee,  though  he  were 
the  impenitent  thief. 

"John  Vane,  you  must  be  there  to-night,"  said 
Mr.  Darius  Dorman  to  our  hero,  a  few  hours  pre 
vious  to  the  caucus.  "We  may  want  you  like 


2O  HONEST  JOHN   VANE. 

the  Devil,"  he  added,  without  considering  the 
precise  uncomplimentary  sense  of  the  compari 
son. 

Darius  Dorman  called  himself  a  broker  or  gen 
eral  business  man;  he  shaved  notes  when  he  had 
money,  and  when  he  had  none  speculated  in  city 
lots;  he  was  always  on  the  lookout  for  public 
jobs,  such  as  paving  contracts,  and  the  supply  of 
stores  to  the  State  militia ;  of  late  he  was  report 
ed  to  be  "engineering  something  through  Con 
gress."  A  very  sooty  and  otherwise  dirty  chore 
this  last  must  have  been,  if  one  might  judge  of  it 
by  the  state  of  his  linen,  his  hands,  and  even  his 
fac'e.  Indeed,  there  was  about  Dorman  such  a 
noticeable  and  persistent  tendency  toward  grimi- 
ness,  that  it  seemed  as  if  he  must  be  charged 
with  some  dark,  pulverous  substance,  which  shook 
through  the  interstices  of  his  hide.  Soap  and 
water  were  apparently  of  no  more  use  to  him 
than  they  would  be  to  a  rag-baby  of  coarse  calico 
stuffed  with  powdered  charcoal  instead  of  saw 
dust.  His  collar,  his  cuffs,  his  haggard,  ghastly 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  21 

features,  his  lean,  griping  claws,  his  very  finger 
nails,  were  always  in  a  somber  condition,  verging 
in  spots  towards  absolute  smirch.  This  opaque 
finish  of  tint,  coupled  with  a  lean  little  figure 
and  a  lively,  eager  action,  caused  some  persons 
to  liken  him  to  a  scorched  monkey.  Other  per 
sons,  whose  imaginations  had  been  solemnized  by 
serious  reading,  could  not  look  upon  him  without 
thinking  of  a  goblin  fresh  from  the  lower  re 
gions,  who  had  not  found  time  since  he  came  on 
earth  to  wash  himself  thoroughly.  In  truth,  if 
you  examined  his  discoloration  closely,  you  dis 
tinguished  a  tint  of  ashes  mingled  with  the  coal 
smirch,  so  that  a  vivid  fancy  might  easily  impute 
to  him  a  subterranean  origin  and  a  highly  heated 
history.  Another  poetical  supposition  concern 
ing  him  was,  that  his  dusky  maculations  and 
streakings  were  caused  by  the  exudations  of  an 
exceedingly  smutty  soul.  His  age  was  unknown ; 
no  one  in  Slowburgh  knew  when  he  was  born, 
nor  so  much  as  where  he  came  from;  but  the 
iron-grey  of  his  unkempt,  dusty  hair  suggested 
that  he  must  be  near  fifty. 


22  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

"  They  mean  to  put  up  Saltonstall  against 
Bummer,  don't  they  ? "  asked  John  Vane,  with  a 
languid  air,  as  if  he  took  little  interest  in  the 
caucus. 

"  Yes,  but  it  won't  work,"  replied  Dorman. 
"  Saltonstall  is  altogether  too  much  of  a  gentle 
man  to  get  the  nomination.  He's  as  calm  and 
cold  and  dead  as  his  buried  ancestors,  the  old 
governors.  You  can't  get  people  to  hurrah  for  a 
gravestone,  even  if  it  has  a  fine  name  on  it.  In 
fact,  the  fine  name  is  a  disadvantage ;  American 
freemen  hate  an  aristocrat.  It's  really  curious  to 
see  how  Saltonstall's  followers  are  killing  him  off. 
They  are  saying  that,  because  he  is  the  son  of  an 
honorable,  he  ought  to  be  an  honorable  himself, 
and  that  he  will  do  the  right  thing  for  the  sake 
of  his  forefathers.  Our  voters  don't  see  it  in  that 
light.  They  want  plain  people  to  become  honor- 
ables.  Besides,  who  wants  a  Congressman  to  be 
fussy  ?  The  chaps  inside  politics  know  that  they 
won't  get  any  favors  out  of  a  man  who  has  a  high 
and  mighty  character  to  nurse.  I  tell  you  that 


HONEST  JOHN    VAN  I'..  23 

t 

Saltonstall  won't  get  the  nomination.  Bummer 
won't  get  it  either.  Some  third  man  is  bound 
to  come  in  ;  and  you  may  be  the  very  fellow. 
So,  don't  fail  to  be  on  hand,  Vane.  Everything 
depends  on  your  showing  yourself.  When  you 
are  called  for,  rise  up  to  the  full  height  of  your 
manly  figger,  and  see  what  a  yell  there  '11  be  for 
honest  John  Vane." 

"  O,  pshaw !  nonsense,  now,"  smiled  Vane,  shak 
ing  his  large  and  shapely  head ;  but  none  the  less 
he  resolved  to  attend  the  caucus,  and,  indeed, 
positively  promised  so  to  do. 


CHAPTER    III. 

ALTHOUGH  Darius  Dorman  was  noted  for 
his  unfulfilled  prophecies, — for  instance,  fre 
quently  making  business  predictions  which  caused 
such  widows  and  orphans  as  believed  in  hinj  to 
lose  their  money, — he  on  this  occasion  hit  the 
nail  of  the  future  pretty  squarely  on  the  head. 

As  soon  as  the  caucus  had  been  organized  and 
had  listened  to  a  pair  of  brief  speeches  urging 
harmonious  action,  it  split  into  two  furiously  hos 
tile  factions,  each  headed  by  one  of  the  gentle 
men  who  had  talked  harmony.  Fierce  philippics 
were  delivered,  some  denouncing  Bummer  for 
being  a  taker  of  bribes  and  a  pilferer  of  the 
United  States  Treasury,  and  some  denouncing 
Saltonstall  (as  near  as  could  be  made  out)  for  be 
ing  a  gentleman.  So  suspicious  of  each  other's 
adroitness  were  the  two  parties,  and  so  nearly 
balanced  did  they  seem  to  be  in  numbers,  that 

(24) 


JOHN   YAM-:.  25 


neither  dared  press  the  contest  to  a  ballot.  The 
war  of  by  no  means  ambrosial  words  went  on 
until  the  air  of  the  hall  became  little  less  than 
mephitic,  and  the  leading  patriots  present  had 
got  as  hoarse  and  nearly  as  black  in  the  face  as 
so  many  crows.  At  last,  when  accommodation 
was  clearly  impossible,  and  the  chiefs  of  the  con 
tending  parties  were  pretty  well  fagged  with  their 
exertions,  Darius  Dorm  an  sprang  to  his  feet  (if, 
indeed,  they  were  not  hoofs),  and  proposed  the 
name  of  his  favored  candidate. 

"I  beg  leave  to  point  the  way  to  a  compromise 
which  will  save  the  party  from  disunion  and  from 
defeat,"  he  screamed  at  the  top  of  a  voice  pene 
trating  enough  to  cleave  Hell's  thickest  vapors. 
"As  Congressman  for  this  district,  I  nominate 
honest  John  Vane." 

Another  broker  and  general  contractor,  whose 
prompt  inspiration,  by  the  way,  had  been  pre 
viously  cut  and  dried  with  great  care,  instantly 
and,  as  he  said,  spontaneously  seconded  the  mo 
tion.  Then,  in  rapid  succession,  a  workingman 


26  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

who  had  learned  the  joiner's  trade  with  Vane, 
and  a  Maine  liquor  law  orator  who  had  more 
than  once  addressed  fellow-citizens  in  his  teetotal 
company,  made  speeches  in  support  of  the  nomi 
nation.  The  joiner  spoke  with  a  stammering 
tongue  and  a  bewildered  mind,  which  indicated 
that  he  had  been  put  up  for  the  occasion  by 
others,  and  put  up  to  it,  too,  without  regard  to 
any  fitness  except  such  as  sprang  from  the  fact 
of  his  being  one  of  the  "hard-handed  sons  of 
toil," — a  class  revered  and  loved  to  distraction  by 
men  whose  business  it  is  to  "run  the  political 
machine."  The  practised  orator  palavered  in  a 
fluent,  confident  sing-song,  as  brassily  penetrat 
ing  as  the  tinkle  of  a  bell,  and  as  copious  in  repe 
titions.  "  Let  the  old  Republican,"  he  chanted, 
"  come  out  for  him  ;  let  the  young  Republican 
come  out  for  him;  let  the  Democrat,  yea,  the 
very  Democrat,  come  out  for  him ;  let  the  native- 
born  citizen  come  out  for  him;  let  the  foreign- 
born  citizen  come  out  for  him ;  let  the  Irishman, 
and  the  German,  and  the  colored  man  come  out 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  2/ 

for  him  ;  let  the  cold-water  temperance  man  come 
out  for  him  ;  let  the  poor,  tremulous,  whiskey- 
rotted  debauchee  come  out  for  him  ;  let  the 
true  American  of  every  sort  and  species  come 
out  for  him ;  let  all,  yea,  all  men  come  out  for 
awnest  Jawn  Vane!" 

There  was  no  resisting  such  appeals,  coming 
as  they  did  from  the  "masses."  The  veteran 
leaders  in  politics  saw  that  the  "cattle,"  as  they 
called  the  common  herd  of  voters,  were  deter 
mined  for  once  to  run  the  party  chariot,  and 
most  of  them  not  only  got  out  of  the  way,  but 
jumped  up  behind.  They  were  the  first  to  call 
on  Vane  to  show  himself,  and  the  first  to  salute 
his  rising  with  deafening  applause,  and  the  last  to 
come  to  order.  A  vote  was  taken  on  his  nomina 
tion,  and  the  ayes  had  it  by  a  clear  majority.  * 

Then  Darius  Dorman  proposed,  for  the  sake  of 
party  union,  for  the  sake  of  the  good  old  cause, 
for  the  sake  of  this  great  Republic,  to  have  the 
job  done  over  by  acclamation.  There  was  not  an 
audible  dissenting  voice ;  on  the  contrary,  there 


28  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

was  "wild  enthusiasm."  The  old  war-horses  and 
wheel-horses  and  leaders  all  fell  into  the  traces 
at  once,  and  -neighed  and  snorted  and  hurrahed 
until  their  hard  foreheads  dripped  with  patriotic 
perspiration,  every  drop  of  which  they  meant 
should  be  paid  for  in  municipal  or  State  or  Fed 
eral  dollars. 

Many  elders  of  the  people  escorted  Vane  home 
that  evening,  and  sat  up  with  him  with  a  devotion 
which  deserved  no  end  of  postmasterships.  Of 
all  these  admirers,  however,  the  one  who  snug 
gled  closest  and  stayed  latest,  was  that  man  of 
general  business,  Darius  Dorman. 

"John,  a  word  with  you,"  he  began  confiden 
tially,  after  his  rivals  had  all  departed,  at  the  same 
time  drawing  close  up  to  Vane's  side,  and  insinu 
ating  a  dark,  horny  claw  into  one  of  his  button 
holes  ;  "  I  think  you  must  own,  John,  that  I  have 
done  more  than  any  other  man  to  help  you  into 
this  soft  thing.  Would  you  mind  hearing  a  word 
of  advice  ? " 

"  Go  on,"  replied  Vane,  with  that  cheery,  genial 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  2Q 

smile  which  had  done  so  much  toward  making 
him  popular;  "  I  owe  you  an  oyster  supper." 

"  You'll  owe  me  a  good  many,  if  you  follow  my 
counsel,"  continued  Dorman.  "Now  listen  to  me. 
You'll  be  elected  ;  that's  a  sure  thing.  But  after 
that,  what  ?  Why,  you've  got  a  great  career  open 
to  you,  and  you  may  succeed  in  it,  or  you  may 
fail.  It  all  depends  on  what  branch  of  politics 
you  work  at.  Don't  go  into  the  war  memories 
and  the  nigger  worshiping;  all  those  sentimental 
dodges  arc  played  out.  Go  into  finance.  The 
great  national  questions  to  be  attended  to  now 
are  the  questions  of  finance.  Spread  yourself 
on  the  tariff,  the  treasury,  the  ways  and  means, 
internal  improvements,  subsidy  bills,  and  relief 
bills.  Dive  into  those  things,  and  stick  there. 
It's  the  only  way  to  cut  a  figure  in  politics  and 
to  make  politics  worth  your  while." 

"  I've  thought  of  that  already,"  replied  Vane 
hopefully.  "  It's  my  line,  you  know, — business, 
money-matters,  practical  finance." 

"  Exactly  !  "  assented  Dorman.     "  Well,  throw 


3O  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

yourself  on  it,  especially  internal  improvements 
and  subsidy  bills, — that  sort  of  thing.  When 
you  get  in,  I  shall  have  a  scheme  to  propose  to 
you  which  you'll  like  to  push.  Something  big, 
something  national,  something  on  a  grand  scale. 
If  it  goes  through,  it  will  make  reputations,  and 
fortunes,  too,  for  that  matter,"  he  added,  with  a 
glance  at  Vane  which  was  monkey-like  in  its  sly 
greediness. 

"  I  don't  propose  to  go  into  Congress  for 
money,"  answered  honest  John  Vane. 

"  O,  of  course  not ! "  leered  Dorman.  "  You 
want  honor,  and  the  respect  of  the  country,  and 
so  on.  Well,  this  is  just  the  kind  of  a  measure 
that  will  fix  the  eyes  of  the  country  on  whoever 
carries  it  through.  You'll  be  delighted  with  it,  I 
know  you  will.  However,  I  mustn't  blow  it  now; 
the  time  hasn't  come.  All  I  meant  to  say  was, 
that  I  wanted  you  to  keep  a  hand  ready  for  it 
when  it  comes  round.  Well,  that's  all.  I  con 
gratulate  you,  I  do,  with  all  my  heart.  Good 
night." 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  31 

Next  day  all  Slowburgh  was  talking  of  Vane's 
unexpected  nomination  for  congress.  "  Queer 
choice,"  said  some  people.  "  Everything  happens 
in  politics.  Vane  is  as  ignorant  of  real  public 
business  as  he  is  of  Sanscrit."  Others  remarked, 
"  Well,  we  shall  have  a  decent  man  in  the  place. 
John  is  a  good-hearted,  steady,  honest  fellow. 
Not  very  brilliant,  but  he  will  learn  the  ropes  as 
others  have ;  and  then  he  is  so  confounded 
honest!" 

After  a  nomination,  as  we  Americans  know  by 
wearisome  experience,  there  must  be  an  election. 
The  struggle  between  the  two  great  and  noble 
parties  of  the  ins  and  the  outs  which  divided 
Slowburgh  was  on  this  occasion  unusually  vehe 
ment.  The  opposition,  trusting  to  the  divisions 
which  they  supposed  to  exist  in  the  administra 
tion  ranks,  made  such  a  fight  as  despair  makes 
when  it  changes  to  hope. 

Many  of  those  genteel  and  highly  cultivated 
persons  who  ordinarily  hate  politics  became  ex 
cited  ;  and  among  these  abnormally  agitated  ones 


32  .         HONEST   JOHN    VAXE. 

was  Miss  Olympia  Smiles,  It  seems  very  strange, 
and  yet  it  was  natural.  Discovering  that  her  re 
jected  suitor  had  become  an  object  of  interest  to 
all  Slowburgh,  she  also,  by  mere  human  infection 
or  contagion,  began  to  find  him  interesting.  We 
know  how  women  go  on  when  they  once  begin  ;• 
we  remember  how,  during  the  war,  they  flung 
their  smiles,  their  trinkets,  and  seemingly  their 
hearts,  to  unintroduced  volunteers;  we  have  all 
seen  them  absorb  enthusiasm  from  those  around, 
and  exhale  it  with  doubled  heat.  So  it  went, 
during  that  political  crisis,  with  the  young  lady  in 
question.  Before  the  campaign  had  roared  half 
way  through  its  course,  she  was  passionately  in 
terested  in  it,  and  electioneered  for  her  preferred 
candidate  even  to  her  mother's  Democratic  board 
ers. 

"Measures  are  of  little  consequence,"  she  de 
clared  when  she  was  > argued  with  and  confuted 
by  these  prejudiced  individuals.  "  What  we  want 
and  all  that  we  want  is  good  men  in  high  places. 
And,  if  I  had  a  vote,"  she  frequently  asserted 


HONEST   JOHN    YAM..  33 

with  a  convincing  blush,  so  beautiful  was  it, — "  if 
I  had  a  vote,  it  should  go  for  Honest  John 
Vane." 

Honest  John  heard  of  this  and  of  other  similar 
speeches  of  Olympia's,  and  they  seemed  to  him 
altogether  the  most  eloquent  efforts  of  the  cam 
paign.  They  gave  him  a  joy  which  a  connois 
seur  in  happiness  might  envy, — a  joy  which  more 
than  once,  when  he  was  alone,  brought  the  tears 
into  his  eyes.  He  had  cherished  no  spite  against 
the  girl  because  she  had  refused  him  ;  and  he  did 
not  now  say  to  himself  scornfully  that  she  would 
like  to  be  the  wife  of  a  Congressman,  but  that  it 
was  too  late  ;  he  was  too  thoroughly  a  good  fel 
low  and  true  lover  to  secrete  any  such  venom  of 
thought  or  feeling.  The  hope  that  he  might  yet 
win  Olympia  Smiles,  and  devote  to  her  such  part 
of  his  life  as  his  country  and  the  refrigerator 
business  could  spare,  opened  to  him  the  prospect 
of  a  little  heaven  upon  earth.  Meeting  her  one 
day  in  the  street,  he  ventured  to  stop  her,  thanked 
her  stammeringly  for  her  favorable  wishes,  pressed 


34  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

her  hand  with  unconscious  vehemence,  and  parted 
from  her  with  a  swimming  head. 

Olympia  was  sensible  enough  and  sensitive 
enough  to  carry  away  a  rejoiced  heart  from  this 
interview.  She  knew  now  that  she  could  still 
have  this  hero  of  the  hour,  and  she  began  to  find 
that  she  wanted  him,  at  least  a  little.  He  was 
no  longer  common  and,  metaphorically  speaking, 
unclean  in  her  patrician  eyes.  She  looked  after 
his  tall,  robust  figure  as  it  went  from  her,  and 
thought  how  manly  and  dignified  and  even  hand 
some  it  was.  His  condition  of  widowerhood  be 
came  vague  to  her  mind ;  the  gravestone  of  his 
wife  vanished  like  a  ghost  overtaken  by  daybreak ; 
even  his  two  cherished  children  could  not  cast  a 
shadow  over  her  feelings.  It  would  surely  be 
something  fine  to  enter  the  capital  of  the  nation 
'  as  the  wife  of  one  of  the  nation's  law-givers  ;  it 
would  at  least  be  far  better  than  growing  into  old- 
maidenhood  amid  the  sordid  anxieties  of  a  board 
ing-house.  Aristocratic  as  her  breed  was,  and 
delicate  as  had  been  her  culture,  the  title  of  Mrs. 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  35 

John  Vane  tempted  her.  Should  she  throw  a  net 
for  this  man,  drag  him  back  to  her  feet,  and  accept 
him  ?  Well,  perhaps  so  ;  but  first  she  would  see 
whether  he  carried  his  election  ;  she  must  not  be 
caught  by  a  mere  prophecy  of  greatness  and 
glory. 

Let  us  not  be  severe  upon  the  young  lady  be 
cause  of  her  prudence,  asserting  that  she  carried 
it  to  the  point  of  calculating  selfishness.  As  far 
as  concerned  love-making,  this  was  her  first  essay 
in  that  deliberate  virtue ;  and  impartial  psychol 
ogy  will  not  express  angry  surprise  at  her  over 
doing  it  a  little,  so  much  is  the  human  mind  ruled 
by  the  law  of  undulation  or  pulsation,  or,  in  other 
words,  so  apt  is  it  to  go  from  one  extreme  to  an 
other.  Besides,  in  a  matter  so  permanently  serious 
to  woman  as  marriage,  it  is  pardonable  and  even 
praiseworthy  that  she  should  be  cautious. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

WELL,  Honest  John  Vane  triumphed  at  the 
polls,  and  became  member  of  Congress  for 
the  district  of  Slowburgh. 

Let  us  glance  now  at  his  qualifications  for  the 
splendid  and  responsible  position  of  which  his 
fellow-citizens  had  pronounced  him  worthy. 

He  was,  to  use  a  poetical  figure,  in  the  flower 
of  his  age,  or,  to  use  a  corresponding  arithmetical 
figure,  about  thirty-five. 

He  had,  as  lie  and  his  admirers  supposed,  fully 
formed  his  character,  and  settled  it  on  a  stable 
platform  of  worthy  habits  and  creeds. 

He  was  commercially  honest,  indefatigably  in 
dustrious,  a<  believer  in  the  equal  rights  of  man,  a 
strenuous  advocate  of  the  Maine  liquor  law,  a 
member,  if  I  am  not  greatly  mistaken,  of  the 
church,  and  every  way  in  good,  repute  among 
grave,  conscientious  people. 

(36) 


^ 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE,  37 

His  "  war  record  "  was  admitted  to  be  unim 
peachable  ;  that  is  to  say,  he  had  consistently  and 
unflinchingly  denounced  the  Rebellion  "  frpm  its 
inception";  if  he  had  not  fought  for  the  Union 
on  the  battle-field,  he  had  fought  for  it  on  the 
stump  and  in  the  chimney-corner. 

In  all  his  geographical  sentiments  he  was  truly 
American,  even  to  occasional  misunderstanding 
of  our  foreign  affairs,  and  to  the  verge  of  what 
one  might  call  safe  rashness. 

He  wanted  somebody  (meaning  of  course  some 
body  else)  to  thrash  England  well  for  the  Trent 
affair,  and  to  annihilate  her  for  the  Alabama  out 
rages.  He  affirmed  in  one  of  his  public  "efforts" 
that  our  claim  for  indirect  damages  should  be 
prosecuted,  if  necessary,  "  before  the  court  of 
high  Heaven,"  which  phrase  he  always  regarded 
as  one  of  his  happiest  inspirations,  although  he 
had  found  it  "  in  the  paper." 

He  contended  that  it  was  our  mission,  and  con 
sequently  our  duty  to  interfere  in  behalf  of  op 
pressed  Cuba  by  bringing  it  within  the  pale  of 


38  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

our  own  national  debt,  and  generally  to  extend 
the  area  of  freedom  over  such  countries  as  would 
furnish  us  with  a  good  market  for  our  home  pro 
ductions,  and  a  mild  climate  for  our  invalids. 

At  the  same  time  he  did  not  want  to  go  to  war 
for  these  benevolent  purposes  ;  for  war,  as  he  fre 
quently  remarked,  was  a  frightful  thing,  and  we 
had  already  shed  blood  enough  to  show  that  we 
would  fight  rather  than  submit  to  outrage  ;  he 
only  proposed  that  we  "should  sit  still  in  our 
grandeur  and  let  those  fellows  gravitate  toward 
us." 

His  views  concerning  internal  affairs  were 
marked  by  an  equal  breadth  and  thickness.  He 
held  that  the  industry  of  the  American  producer 
should  be  protected,  at  no  matter  what  cost  to  the 
American  consumer. 

He  was  opposed  to  the  introduction  of  Chinese 
cheap  labor  as  being  injurious  to  the  "noble  class 
of  native  artisans,"  however  it  might  benefit  our 
equally  noble  farmers  by  furnishing  them  with 
low-priced  tools,  shoes,  and  clothing. 


HONEST  JOHN    VAXE.  39 

He  believed  that  our  system  of  government 
was  the  purest  and  most  economical  in  the  world, 
when  it  was  not  abused  by  municipal  rings,  pub 
lic  defaulters,  railroad  legislation,  and  lobbyists  of 
the  State  and  national  capitals. 

He  argued  that  rotation  in  office  is  republican, 
because  it  "gives  every  citizen  a  fair  chance"; 
and  that  it  is  a  means  of  national  education,  be- 
catise  it  tempts  even  the  dregs  of  society  to 
aspire  to  responsibility  and  power. 

In  the  whole  superficies  of  our  civil  affairs  he 
saw  but  one  error  which  needed  serious  and  in 
stant  attention,  namely,  the  franking  privilege. 
If  that  could  be  removed,  and  two  millions  thereby 
saved  annually  out  of  a  budget  of  three  or  four 
hundred  millions,  he  thought  that  the  legislative 
sun  of  American  democracy  would  be  left  with 
out  a  spot,  the  exemplar  and  despair  of  other  tax- 
laden  nations. 

Such  was  the  optimist  and  amiable  patriotism 
of  Congressman  Vane.  While  we  cannot  but  ad 
mire  it  from  a  sentimental  point  of  view,  we  are 


4O  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

obliged  to  regret  that  it  did  not  rise  from  a  wider 
base  of  information.  Whether  the  conclusions 
of  this  self-taught  statesman  were  right  or  wrong, 
they  were  alike  the  offspring  of  ignorance,  or  at 
best  of  half  knowledge.  We  can  only  palliate 
his  dark-mindedness  with  regard  to  American 
politics  on  the  ground  that  it  was  cosmically  im 
partial,  and  extended  to  the  politics  of  all  other 
countries,  ancient  and  modern. 

He  had  never  heard  that  our  civil  institutions 
were  not  exclusively  our  own  invention,  but  ger 
minated  naturally  from  the  colonial  charters 
granted  by  "  tyrannical  Britain."  He  believed 
that,  because  Queen  Victoria  cost  England  half 
as  much  annually  as  Boss  Tweed  cost  the  single 
city  of  New  York,  therefore  England  ought  to  be 
and  must  be  on  the  verge  of  a  revolution.  He 
supposed  that  Prussia  must  be  an  unlettered  and 
dishonestly  governed  country,  because  it  is  ruled 
by  a  king.  Of  the  ancient  states  of  Greece  he 
had  a  general  idea  that  they  were  republics,  with 
some  form  or  other  of  representative  government, 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  4! 

Sparta  being  as  much  a  democracy  as  Athens. 
It  would  have  been  news  to  him,  as  fresh  as  any 
thing  arriving  by  telegraph,  that  Attica  was  legis 
lated  for  by  a  single  municipality,  and  that  its  in 
habitants  were  three-fourths  slaves.  The  Rome 
of  his  mind  was  also  a  representative  democracy, 
and  its  conscript  fathers  were,  perhaps,  selected 
by  conscription,  like  recruits  for  some  armies.  Of 
the  tyranny  of  capitalists  and  of  the  corruption 
of  magistrates  and  tax-collectors  in  that  most 
famous  of  all  republics,  he  was  as  ignorant  as  he 
was,  or  strove  to  be,  of  similar  phenomena  in  the 
United  States.  His  reading  in  ancient  history 
began  and  ended  with  Rollin,  to  the  exclusion  of 
Niebuhr,  Arnold,  Grote,  Curtius,  and  Mommsen, 
of  whom,  indeed,  he  had  never  heard.  It  may 
be  thought  that,  for  the  sake  of  a  joke,  I  am  ex 
aggerating  Mr.  Vane's  Eden-like  nakedness  and 
innocence  ;  but  I  do  solemnly  and  sadly  assure 
the  reader  that  I  have  not  robbed  him  of  a  single 
fig-leaf  of  knowledge  which  belonged  to  him. 
As  for  political  economy,  he  had  never  seen  a 


42  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

line  of  Adam  Smith,  Mill,  Bastiat,  or  any  of  their 
fellows  ;  they  not  being  quoted  in  "the  papers" 
which  furnished  his  sole  instruction  in  statesman 
ship,  and  almost  his  sole  literary  entertainment. 
He  was  too  completely  unaware  of  these  writers 
and  of  their  conclusions  to  attack  them  with  the 
epithet  of  theorists  or  of  doctrinaires.  All  that 
he  knew  of  political  economy  was  that  Henry  C. 
Carey  had  written  some  dull  letters  about  it  to 
the  Tribune,  and  that  the  Pennsylvania  iron-men 
considered  him  "  an  authority  to  tie  to."  His 
vague  impression  was  that  the  science  advocated 
the  protection  of  native  manufactures,  and  that 
consequently  it  would  be  worth  looking  into  when 
ever  he  found  a  moment's  respite  from  business 
and  politics. 

Certainly,  it  was  wonderful  how  little  this  self- 
taught  soul  could  see  into  a  millstone,  even  when 
it  was  his  own  and  he  ground  at  it  daily.  He 
was  a  manufacturer  of  refrigerators  ;  and  very 
thankful  indeed  was  he  that  Congress  had  imposed 
high  import  duties  on  foreign  specimens  of 


HONEST   JOHN    YAM..  43 

that  "line  of  goods";  it  was  patriotic  and  wise, 
he  thought,  thus  to  protect  American  industry 
against  the  pauper  labor  of  Europe.  Meantime, 
he  did  not  consider  that  his  zinc  and  hinges,  and 
screws  and  nails,  and  paint  and  varnish  were 
taxed  ;  that  his  own  food,  raiment,  fuel,  and 
shelter,  and  .also  the  food,  raiment,  fuel,  and 
shelter  of  his  workmen,  were  likewise  taxed ; 
that,  in  short,  taxation  increased  the  expense  of 
all  the  materials  of  labor  and  the  necessaries  of  life 
which  made  up  the  principal  cost  of  his  fabrics  ; 
and  that  it  was  mainly  because  of  these  things 
that  he  was  unable  to  produce  refrigerators  at 
anything  like  the  ante-tax  prices. 

The  government  put  a  little  money  into  one  of 
his  pockets  and  took  the  same  sum  or  more  out 
of  several  others  ;  and  he  was  so  far  from  seeing 
that  the  legerdemain  did  not  help  him,  or  perhaps 
hurt  him,  that  he  enthusiastically  sang  praises  to 
it.  There  had  been  a  time  when  he  exported, 
when  he  could  boast  that  a  portion  of  his  revenue 
came  from  beyond  sea,  when  he  had  hopes  of 
building  up  a  fine  market  abroad.  Not  so  now  ; 


44  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

foreigners  could  no  longer  afford  to  buy  of  him  ; 
they  made  all  their  own  refrigerators.  John  Vane 
did  not  comprehend  this  adverse  providence  any 
more  than  if  he  had  himself  been  made  of  pine 
and  lined  with  zinc.  He  compendiously  remarked, 
<'"  Our  prices  rule  too  high  for  those  beggars,"  and 
was  patriotically  proud  of  the  fact,  though  sadly 
out  of  pocket  by  it.  Such  was  his  insight  into 
legislation  where  it  directly  concerned  his  own 
bread  and  butter.  You  can  imagine  what  a  clear 
view  he  had  of  those  labyrinths  of  it  which  ramify 
through  the  general  body  politic. 

But  if  he  was  not  an  instructed  soul,  he  was  at 
all  events  an  honest  one.  That  attribute  all  his 
fellow-citizens  conceded  to  him,  even  those  who 
did  not  see  the  wisdom  or  beauty  of  it ;  it  was  a 
matter  of  common  fame  in  Slowburgh,  and,  one 
might  almost  say,  of  common  conversation.  Men 
who  could  not  get .  trusted  for  five  dollars  spoke 
of  him  approvingly  as  "  Honest  John  Vane,"  feel 
ing,  perhaps,  that  in  so  doing  they  imputed  to 
themselves  a  little  of  his  righteousness,  so  illogi 
cal  are  the  mental  processes  of  sinners. 


HONEST   JOHN    YANK.  45 

It  is  worth  while  to  relate  (if  only  to  encourage 
our  youth  in  the  ways  of  virtue)  how  easily  he 
had  acquired  this  high  repute.  While  a  member 
of  the  State  legislature  he  had  refused  a  small 
bribe  from  a  lobbyist,  and  had  publicly  denounced 
the  briber.  That  this  inexpensive  outburst  of 
probity  should  secure  him  widespread  and  per 
manent  fame  does  not,  to  be  sure,  shed  a  very 
pleasing  light  over  the  character  which  is  borne 
by  our  law-givers.  But  we  will  not  enter  upon 
that  subject ;  it  perhaps  needs  more  whitewash 
than  we*  possess.  We  will  simply  call  the  atten 
tion  of  Sunday  school  pupils  and  Young  Men's 
Christian  Associations  to  the  cheering  fact  that, 
at  a  prime  cost  of  one  hundred  dollars,  our  towns 
man  was  able  to  arise  and  shine  upon  a  people 
noted  for  i.ts  political  purity  as  "  Honest  John 
Vane!"  Only  one  hundred  in  greenbacks  (about 
ninety  in  gold)  out  of  pocket,  and  the  clays  of 
Washington  come  again !  I  should  suppose  that, 
for  say  twice  the  figure,  a  legislator  of  the  period 
%night  get  the  title  of  "  Father  of  his  Country." 


CHAPTER    V. 

OUCH  as  we  have  described  was  John  Vane's 
O  slender  outfit  for  the  labors  and  responsibili 
ties  of  a  Congressman  at  the  time  he  became 
one. 

Was  it  sufficient  ?  Slowburgh,  taken  collec 
tively,  thought  it  was.  He  was  too  ignorant  to 
be  a  professor  in  the  State  university,  or  even  a 
teacher  in  one  of  the  city  schools  ;  but  it  was 
presumed  that  he  would  answer  well  enough  as  a 
law-giver  for  a  complicated  Republic  containing 
forty  millions  of  people. 

The  great  majority  of  his  constituents  did  not 
suppose  that  their  representative  needed  any  more 
intelligence  or  moral  stamina  than  would  just 
enable  him  to  find  out  what  were  the  "party 
measures,"  and  faithfully  to  vote  for  them.  The 
few  who  believed  that  he  ought  to  be  acquainted 
either  with  finance,  or  political  economy,  or  con- 

(46) 


HUNILST    JOHN    YANK.  47 

stitutional  limitations,  or  international  law,  and 
that  furthermore  he  should  be  a  person  of  tried 
character  and  honor, — these  few  eccentrics  had 
no  political  influence.  Such  were  the  happy-go- » 
lucky  credences  at  which  universal  suffrage  had 
arrived  in  this  exceptional  district  of  Slowburgh. 
But  as  this  state  of  public  opinion  was  not 
John  Vane's  work,  we  must  neither  blame  him 
nor  praise  him  for  it.  We  ought  even  to  take  a 
respectful  and  compassionate  interest  in  him,  as 
a  good-hearted  man  of  fair  repute  who  was  about 
to  be  severely  tried  by  temptation,  a'nd  who,  even 
in  his  hour  of  triumph,  had  his  pathetic  hopes 
and  fears.  It  is  creditable  to  his  sentimental 
nature  that,  amid  all  the  visions  of  greatness 
which  naturally  flocked  about  him,  he  did  not 
forget  his  love  for  the  daughter  of  the  boarding- 
house  keeper,  but  rather  remembered  her  the 
more  tenderly  because  he  had  a  sort  of  throne 
to  share  with  her.  When  he  heard  that  he  was 
elected,  his  first  desire  was  to  seek  her  presence 
and  offer  himself  once  more.  In  this  mind  he 
3 


48  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

faithfully  remained ;  but  how  should  he  transform 
it  into  deed  ?  Having  been  refused  by  her,  and 
having  departed  from  her  mother's  house,  really 
in  humble  sorrow,  but  seemingly  in  lofty  dudgeon, 
he  simply  supposed  that  he  must  not  call  upon 
her. 

Should  he  write  ?  Well,  it  is  very  strange  to 
tell,  but  nevertheless  it  is  solemnly  true,  that 
this  Congressman  elect  distrusted  his  ability  to 
compose  a  suitable  epistle  for  the  occasion.  Of 
course  he  could  spell  correctly,  and,  as  for  busi 
ness  letters,  he  wrote  a  dozen  or  so  a  day,  and 
very  good  ones  too.  A  speech  also  he  could 
make,  for  nature  had  given  him  that  common 
place  fluency  of  utterance  which  does  so  much 
duty  in  our  public  affairs,  and .  he  had  acquired 
confidence  in  delivery  by  practice  in  caucuses, 
debating-clubs,  and,  if  I  do  not  err,  in  prayer- 
meetings.  But  in  English  composition  of  the 
elegant  and  delicate  sort,  he  was  entirely  inex 
perienced.  He  said  to  himself  that,  if  he  should 
write  a  declaratory  note  to  Miss  Smiles,  some- 

• 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  49 

thing  common,  something  lacking  in  high  breed 
ing,  might  creep  into  it,  which  would  be  sure  to 
disgust  this  genteel  and  highly  educated  young 
lady,  and  cause  her,  as  he  stated  it  in  his  anxious 
mind,  "  to  put  another  veto  on  him."  So,  for  sev 
eral  days,  our  statesman  elect  walked  the  streets 
of  the  city  which  had  delighted  to  honor  him, 
with  a  prevalently  humble  and  troubled  spirit. 

Accident  at  last  favored  him  ;  or,  perhaps,  it 
may  have  been  a  stroke  of  feminine  providence ; 
for  women  do  sometimes  condescend  to  order 
their  own  destinies.  Once  again  Olympia  Smiles 
met  him  on  the  street,  and  most  graciously  al 
lowed  herself  to  be  stopped  by  him,  if,  indeed, 
she  did  not  herself  do  the  stopping.  Vane  was 
for  a  moment  dumb,  for  he  remembered  that  he 
had  nothing  special  to  say  to  her  except  that  he 
adored  her,  and  it  did  not  seem  to  him  quite 
proper  to  interview  her  just  there  on  that  subject. 
Olympia  came  to  his  rescue  with  that  quickness 
of  mind  which  young  ladies  rarely  lose  and  that 
mercy  which  they  sometimes  have. 


5O  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

"  Mr.  Vane,  I  am  glad  to  meet  you,"  she  smiled. 
It  was  a  very  cordial  speech  surely,  but  it  did  not 
at  all  diminish  her  maidenly  dignity,  so  well  did 
she  know  how  to  rule  her  manner.  "  I  have 
really  longed  to  congratulate  you  on  your  vic 
tory,"  she  continued.  "  It  gives  me  a  great  deal 
of  pleasure." 

"  I  thank  you  exceedingly,"  stammered  John, 
blushing  with  unspeakable  joy  and  fright.  "  I 
heard  you  were  good  enough  to  take  my  side 
during  the  campaign.  I  was  very  much  obliged 
to  you  for  it,  I  am  sure." 

He  showed  no  anger  and  he  put  on  no  dignity, 
though  he  seemed  to  hear  even  then  her  humili 
ating  words,  "  It  can  never  be."  In  the  matter 
of  loving,  he  was  surely  a  model  soul,  and,  so  far 
as  that  goes,  well  worth  any  woman's  winning. 

"Why  don't  you  come  and  see  us?"  she  re 
sumed,  after  a  moment  of  natural  hesitation  over 
the  entangling  query.  "  I  had  hoped  that  we 
should  always  remain  good  friends." 

She  looked  uncommonly  attractive  as  she  ut- 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  5  I 

tercd  this,  for  there  was  an  enchantment  about 
her  beyond  that  of  mere  beauty.  Her  agitation 
not  only  filled  her  cheeks  with  color,  and  her 
eyes  with  tremulous  light,  but  drew  from  her 
whole  being  a  mysterious  influence  which  we 
might,  perhaps,  call  a  halo  of  enticement.  She 
longed  so  earnestly  to  bring  her  discarded  lover 
back  to  her  feet,  that  he  could  not  but  be  vaguely 
aware  of  the  longing. 

"  I  shall  be  delighted  to  call,"  replied  John 
Vane,  so  much  moved  that  he  could  not  devise  a 
fine  speech,  but  delivering  himself  with  the  sim 
plicity  of  high  breeding.  "  Will  you  allow  me  to 
see  you  this  evening  ? " 

"  Yes,"  murmured  Olympia,  drawing  her  breath 
with  some  difficulty.  "  Do  come." 

Then,  unwilling  to  say  more  for  fear  of  expos 
ing  her  feelings  too  clearly,  she  gave  him  a  bewil 
dering  smile  and  went  her  way.  Her  superb » 
figure  thrilled-  in  every  vein  with  excitement,  and  • 
she  could  hardly  set  her  little  bootees  upon  the 
ground  steadily.  Citizen  John  Vane  had  had  no 


52  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

attractions  for  her  ;  but  she  could  not  help  being 
drawn  by  the  member  of  Congress.  After  the 
fashion  of  women,  she  instinctively  admired  a 
man  who  rules  his  fellow-men,  and  causes  them 
to  do  him  reverence.  As  he,  like  all  masculine 
flesh,  adored  beauty  and  delicacy,  so  she,  like  all 
feminine  flesh,  worshiped  strength  and  authority. 
That  evening  John  called,  in  his  best  suit,  at 
his  old  boarding-house,  and  was  received  there 
with  a  warmth  which  melted  the  icy  past  out  of 
his  mind.  Mrs.  Smiles,  who  had  always  liked 
him,  and  who  had  been  sentimentally  pained  as 
well  as  financially  injured  by  losing  him  from  her 
table,  called  up  all  her  social  graces  of  bygone 
fashionable  days  to  do  him  honor.  Julia  Maria, 
Olympia's  younger  sister,  only  nineteen  years  old 
at  the  time,  saluted  him  in  her  pert  but  allur 
ing  way  as,  "the  delegation  from  Slowburgh." 
Olympia  herself,  that  experienced  though  not 
hardened  veteran  of  the  world,  robed  herself  in 
just  the  right  mixture  of  cordiality  and  dignity. 
Both  in  a  moral  and  in  a  ward-robe  sense,  she  had 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  53 

taken  great  pains  to  get  herself  up  for  the  occa 
sion.  She  was  arrayed  in  her  best  garnet  silk ; 
and  we  ought  to  add  the  statement  that  it  was 
her  only  really  good  and  fresh  one, — a  pathetic 
circumstance  in  view  of  the  fact  that  she  dearly 
loved  gorgeous  apparel,  and  that  it  suited  her 
style  of  beauty.  The  rich  and  noble  color  of  the 
garnet  lent  additional  splendor  to  the  flush  on 
her  brunette  cheeks,  and  to  the  liquid  sparkle 
of  her  dark  eyes.  There  was  an  emerald  cross 
(a  relic  of  her  mother's  former  prosperity)  on 
her  breast ;  and  several  rings,  of  like  moving  his 
tory,  sent  out  little  glimmers  of  gentility  from 
her  fingers.  The  fine  raiment  and  the  authentic! 
splendor  of  the  jewels  became  her,  and  made  her 
more  queenly,  more  like  a  Cleopatra,  than  even 
her  wont.  John  Vane  had  never  "before  seen  her 
so  beautiful,  and  he  was  dazzled  to  that  degree 
that  he  forgot  his  own  political  majesty,  and  sat 
before  her  on  the  edge  of  a  chair,  a  most  humble 
Antonv. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

**  T  am  truly  rejoiced  at  your  success,  Mr. 
Vane,"  chanted  the  mother,  who  felt  it  her 
duty  to  open  the  way  toward  full  cordiality. 

"  We  shall  now  have  an  honest  man  to  repre 
sent  us,"  she  continued,  repeating  such  political 
talk  as  she  had  fully  caught  the  sense  of  while 
serving  her  boarders.  "And  a  man  of  ability, 
too/'  she  quickly  added,  vaguely  conscious  that 
an  imputation  of  honesty  alone  is  small  praise. 
"  Knowing  what  you  have  done  in  life  hitherto,  I 
feel  sure  that  you  will  be  very  useful  in  your  new 
sphere." 

"  Do  manage,  Mr.  Vane,  to  have  a  gay  season 
in  Washington,"  put  in  Julia  Maria ;  "  and  then  do 
get  me  an  invite  to  spend  the  winter  there." 

Olympia  lost  a  little  of  her  air  of  repose,  and 
glanced  uneasily  at  her  sister.  Was  it  within  the 
range  of  possibility  that  this  young  chit  should 

(54) 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  55 

skip  into  the  arena  and  carry  off  the  prize  by  dint 
of  mere  girlish  forwardness  and  flippancy?  Mrs. 
Smiles  also  saw  the  peril,  and,  in  obedience  to 
the  eye  of  her  eldest,  sweetly  sent  Julia  Maria 
down  stairs  with  a  message  to  the  cook. 

"  I  don't  know  what  sort  of  a  figger  I  shall 
cut  in  Congress,"  observed  John  Vane,  modestly. 
"  But  you  may  be  sure,  Mrs.  Smiles,  that  I  shall 
do  my  honest  best.  I  hope  sincerely  that  I  shall 
merit  the  compliments  you  are  so  polite  as  to  pay 
me." 

"  O,  indeed  you  will ! "  broke  in  both  mother 
and  daughter,  eagerly. 

"And  yet,  I  should  think  you  would  tremble 
at  the  thought  of  assuming  such  responsibilities," 
continued  Mrs.  Smiles,  gazing  with  real  venera 
tion  at  her  once  favored  boarder,  now  the  choice 
of  the  people.  "  It  must  be  such  a  terrible  thing 
to  decide  on  the  President's  salary,  and  such-like 
important  questions." 

"O,  that's  very  simple!"  answered  the  Con 
gressman  elect,  pardonably  anxious  to  show  a  little 


56  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

bit  of  his  political  lore.  "You  see,  the  Presi 
dent's  salary  is  fixed  by  law,  and  there's  no  dis 
cussion  over  it." 

"  Yes,  but  you  may  have  to  vote  on  the  law," 
pursued  the  good  lady,  eager  to  make  up  some 
work  for  her  hero. 

"  O,  as  to  that,"  stammered  Vane,  who  had 
been  drawn  beyond  his  depth,  "  I  dare  say  that 
may  come  up  sometimes !  Of  course,  when  it 
does,  Congress  attends  to  it." 

"  Certainly,"  chimed  in  Mrs.  Smiles,  delighted 
that  it  should  be  so,  because  it  enhanced  her 
friend's  glory.  "I  remember  hearing  Mr.  Smiles, 
my  poor  husband, — this  was  when  we  were  in 
better  circumstances,  Mr.  Vane,  —  I  remember 
hearing  him  say  that  Congress  is  only  too  power 
ful.  He  took  a  great  interest  in  politics,  Mr. 
Smiles  did.  It  is  the  business  of  a  statesman, 
he  used  to  say.  Often  and  often  I've  heard  him 
say  it." 

By  this  time  Olympia  was  glancing  sidelong  at 
her  mother,  as  she  had  previously  glanced  at  her 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  57 

sister.  Mrs.  Smiles  noted  the  look  and  divined 
from  it  that  she  was  in  the  girl's  way,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  remove  herself. 

"  Dear  me !  I  wonder  if  Julia  gave  my  mes 
sage,"  she  exclaimed,  in  a  simulated  tone  of  re 
miniscence.  "  Do  excuse  me  for  a  few  moments, 
Mr.  Vane.  You  know  a  housekeeper  has  her 
affairs." 

"  Certainly,  Mrs.  Smiles,"  bowed  John,  who 
was  rejoiced  to  have  her  depart,  although  he  also 
felt  nervous. 

As  soon  as  the  two  "  young  people  "  were  left 
alone,  Olympia  rose  from  the  chair  where  she 
had  been  sitting  in  isolated  dignity,  advanced  to 
our  Congressman  with  an  air  of  cordial  interest, 
and  placed  herself  by  his  side  on  a  sofa. 

"  Now  tell  me  all  about  it,"  she  murmured  with 
a  bewildering  smile.  "  I  have  so  longed  to  ques 
tion  you !  I  wanted  to  give  you  some  intelligent 
sympathy.  Tell  me  all  your  plans  of  legislation, 
as  far  as  it  is  proper  to  tell  them  to  a  woman." 

Such  a  gush  from  such  a  source  was  intoxicat- 


58  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

ing  to  the  heart,  and  furthermore  it  was  inspiring 
to  the  mind.  Some  thousands  of  psychologists 
have  already  remarked  that  a  man  can  always 
talk  easily,  if  you  will  let  him  talk  about  himself 
and  provide  him  with  an  interested  and  interest 
ing  listener.  John  Vane  at  once  lost  his  em 
barrassment  and  found  that  this  was  indeed  a 
land  of  free  speech.  He  had  a  fluent  utterance, 
/  as  we  have  already  indicated,  and  on  this  occa- 
|  sion  he  beat  his  best  time  on  the  platform.  He 
told  all  that  he  knew  about  national  politics,  and 
some  things  which  neither  he  nor  any  other  man 
ever  knew. 

"  O,  that  will  be  noble  work!"  exclaimed  Olym- 
pia,  when  he  had  fully  exposed  his  plan  for  reno 
vating  and  purifying  the  Republic  by  rescinding 
'"the  franking  privilege.  "  We  shall  all  owe  you  a 
vast  debt  of  gratitude,"  she  continued,  without  in 
the  least  comprehending  how  the  reform  would 
benefit  her  or  any  other  human  creature.  "  But 
do  you  think  it  possible  to  eradicate  such  an  estab 
lished  and  wide-spread  abuse?"  sine  continued, 


HONEST   JOHN    VAXK.  59 

calling  it  what  he  had  called  it,  and  thereby  caus 
ing  him  to  marvel  at  her  discrimination.  "  Here 
are  all  these  greedy  people  all  over  the  country, 
crazy  to  get  these  big  books  and  reports  that  you 
speak  of.  How  do  you  think  they  will  bear  being 
deprived  of  them  ?  Of  course  they  will  become 
your  bitter  enemies.  Don't  you  think  it  would 
be  safer,  and  better  in  the  long  run,  to  begin  with 
some  easier  work,  where  there  would  not  be  mil 
lions  to  oppose  you  ?  Of  course  I  am  dreadfully 
ignorant  of  these  political  matters,"  she  naively 
confessed,  discovering  by  his  face  that  she  had 
made  some  blunder,  which  she  certainly  had  as  to 
the  millions.  "  You  must  forgive  me  for  ventur 
ing  suggestions.  I  ought  not  to  try  to  discuss 
matters  so  much  above  me.  But  I  am  so  eager 
to  have  you  succeed  from  the  very  start!  O,  so 
eager!"  she  added,  rolling  up  her  fine  eyes  en 
thusiastically 

"  O  Miss  Smiles!  I  do  heartily  thank  you  for 
your  interest,"  gasped  John  Vane,  barely  restrain 
ing  himself  from  falling  on  his  majestic  knees. 


6O  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

At  this  moment  the  impertinent  cheap  parlor 
clock  struck  ten.  Congressman  Vane  started  and 
stared  at  its  round  face  with  astonishment.  Since 
Mrs.  Smiles  had  left  the  room  "  for  a  few  mo 
ments,"  more  than  an  hour  had  elapsed, 

"  I  must  be  going,"  he  observed,  remembering 
an  appointment,  at  ten  precisely,  with  certain 
leading  managers  of  politics. 

"O,  it  is  not  late!  "  pleaded  Olympia.  "  I  have 
but  just  begun  to  get  interested — I  mean,  to  un 
derstand  these  matters." 

But  the  Congressman  felt  that  it  would  not  do 
to  let  his  potent  allies  wait  long,  and,  humbly 
pleading  his  appointment,  he  persisted  in  rising. 

"Do  call  again  soon,"  urged  the  young  lady. 
"  I  want  to  show  you  that  I  am  still  your  friend, — 
one  of  your  most  sincere  friends,"  she  added  fer 
vently,  giving  him  her  hand. 

John  Vane  could  not  resist  the  temptation  ;  he 
impulsively  pressed  that  hand  to  his  lips.  "  You 
know  how  I  feel ! "  he  gasped  in  apology,  and  then 
in  haste  made  his  dizzy  way  to  the  door. 


HONEST   JOHN    YANK.  6 1 

"O,  how  could  you!"  whispered  Olympia  in 
feigned  remonstrance.  But  her  cheek  was  red 
with  pride  and  pleasure,  and  her  parting  glance 
was  of  a  nature  to  fill  him  with  hope. 

A  sense  of  justice  compels  us  to  state  that  this 
young  lady  was  not  merely  a  clever  hypocrite, 
cold-heartedly  planning  for  herself  a  prosperous 
marriage.  During  the  two  months  in  which  John 
Vane  had  fought  his  election  fight  and  won  his 
really  brilliant  victory,  she  had  not  only  lost  all 
her  early  disdain  of  him,  but  had  gradually  learned 
to  admire  him,  to  wish  to  win  him,  and  to  like 
him.  People  are  often  loved,  not  merely  for  what 
they  are  themselves,  but  also  for  their  adventitious 
surroundings.  I  myself  feel  that  I  might  have  a 
passion  for  a  tolerably  plain  queen,  if  her  Majesty 
should  distinctly  and  magnificently  encourage  me. 
Just  in  this  natural,  and  therefore,  I  suppose,  ra 
tional  and  proper  manner,  Olympia  "fancied"  and 
in  a  certain  sense  loved  Mr.  Vane  because  he  was 
a  Congressman  and  a  celebrity. 

A  learned  pig,  or  any  other  intellect  of  a  second- 


62  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

rate  order,  might  predict  with  accuracy  the  result 
of  such  a  state  of  things.  These  two  people, 
who  so  earnestly  wanted  each  other,  soon  man 
aged  to  have  each  other.  But,  although  John 
Vane  made  an  easy  conquest,  it  was  none  the  less 
an  unexpected  one  to  him,  and  a  matter  of  great 
and  keen  joy.  When  he  at  last  dared  to  say  to 
Olympia,  "Will  you  be  my  wife?"  and  when  she 
leaned  with  downcast  eyes  toward  him  and  whis 
pered,  "  I  will,"  he  was  as  much  astonished  with 
gladness  as  if  he  had  been  received  bodily  into 
heaven.  Just  in  that  moment  his  feelings,  and 
we  may  hopefully  venture  to  add  hers  also,  were 
as  admirable  and  enviable  as  the  emotions  of  the 
most  select  and  highly  educated  natures  would 
average  under  the  same  circumstances,  and  might 
easily  be  accepted  as  the  sure  harbingers  of  a 
happy  married  life. 

We  shall  see  in  the  sequel,  when  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Vane  come  to  be  exposed  to  the  temptations  of 
Washington,  whether  these  seraphic  visitants 
prophesied  correctly. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

IN  due  time  John  Vane  took  his  lovely  bride  to 
the  national  capital,  and  entered  upon  his  triple 
career  as  a  social  magnate,  a  lawgiver,  and  a  re 
former. 

He  was  a  bloomingly  happy  man  at  the  period 
of  that  advent,  and  he  could  surely  allege  satis 
factory  reasons  for  his  beatitude.  He  had  attained 
eminence  early  in  life ;  there  were  few  younger 
Congressmen  than  himself.  His  fame  as  an  in 
corruptible  soul  had  preceded  him  ;  and  because 
of  it  he  hnd  been  received  by  his  brother  legisla 
tors  with  a  deference  which  spoke  well  for  them  : 
as  if  they  also  were  honest  or  admired  probity 
theoretically,  or  at  the  very  least  bowed  to  popular 
prejudice  on  the  subject.  He  had,  as  he  sup 
posed,  a  sure  entry  into  the  hitherto  unvisited 
region  which  he  called  high  society,  and  by  his 
side  walked  a  being  who  seemed  to  him  perfectly 

(63) 


64  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

fitted  to  guide  him  among  those  Delectable  Moun 
tains.  Finally,  his  wife  was  the  object  of  his  ro 
bust,,  undivided  affection,  and,  to  the  best  of  his 
knowledge  and  belief,  returned  it  with  interest. 

But,  however  pure  and  abundant  may  be  the 
sources  of  earthly  joy,  some  turbid  stream  will 
ever  and  anon  rile  them,  bubbling  up  no  doubt 
from  the  infernal  regions.  Before  long  Vane  dis 
covered,  or  rather  had  it  borne  in  upon  him,  that 
Olympia  was  not  pleased  with  her  architectural 
surroundings,  nor  with  their  upholstery  attributes. 
His  apartments,  it  must  be  conceded,  were  not 
fine;  they  were  just  that  kind  of  tarnished, 
frowsy  lodgings  which  Congressmen  of  moderate 
means  grumble  at,  but  perforce  put  up  with ;  such 
lodgings  as  one  is  sure  to  find  abundantly  in  any 
city  which  is  crowded  during  one  half  of  the 
year  and  deserted  during  the  other  half.  Even 
Vane,  whose  self-made  career  had  not  left  him  a 
sybarite,  was  obliged  to  admit  that  the  bedroom 
smelt  unpleasantly  of  a  neighboring  stable,  and 
that  the  parlor  was  dingy  and  scantily  furnished. 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  65 

"O,  this  shabby  Washington !"  Olympia  soon 
began  to  sigh.  "  What  mean,  musty,  vile  rooms ! 
I  don't  see  how  we  came  to  take  them.  I'm  sure 
nobody  but  poorhouse  people  will  visit  us  twice 

"But,  my  dear  petsy  posy,  what  can  be  done?" 
gently  replied  John.  "They  are  the  best  we 
could  find  at  the  figgcr,  and  the  figgcr  is  as  high 
as  my  pocket-book  measures.  Just  look  at  the 
whole  thing  now,"  he  continued,  patiently  recom 
mencing  an  argument  which  he  had  already  been 
driven  to  state  more  than  once.  "  I'll  show  you 
exactly  how  I  stand.  As  a  source  of  income  the 
refrigerator  business  don't  count  at  present.  I 
had  to  take  in  a  partner  to  carry  on  the  shop  ; 
and  whether  there'll  be  any  profits  or  not  I  can't 
yet  say.  It  won't  be  safe,  at  least  not  for  the  first 
year,  to  estimate  my  receipts  at  anything  more 
than  my  Congressional  salary.  What  I  have  to 
live  on,  then,  is  just  five  thousand  dollars,  and  no 
more." 

"  But  that  is  a  great  deal,"  interrupted  Olympia, 


66  HONEST   JOHN   VANE. 

who  had  never  had  anything  whatever  to  do  with 
the  boarding-house  responsibilities,  and  was  con 
sequently  as  ignorant  of  the  cost  of  living  as 
Queen  Victoria,  and  probably  a  great  deal  more 
so. 

"Well,  that  depends  on  the  rate  of  outgo," 
smiled  the  husband,  hoping  vainly  to  render  his 
logic  palatable  by  sugaring  it  with  meekness. 
"  Now,  what  are  our  expenses?  First,  there  are 
the  two  children.  I  wanted  to  make  things  easy 
for  your  mother,  and  so  I  put  their  board  at 
twenty-four  dollars  per  week,  which,  with  other 
bills,  such  as  clothing,  schooling,  doctoring,  etc., 
will  foot  up  to  eighteen  hundred  a  year.  It's 
awful,  but  I  wanted  to  make  it  light  on  the  old 
lady." 

He  smiled  again,  not  noting  how  this  reference 
to  the  maternal  poverty  jarred  on  Olympia. 

"Then  our  board  and  rooms  here,"  he  con 
tinued,  "cost  forty  dollars  a  week,  and  won't  fall 
greatly  below  that  while  we  are  in  Slowburgh,  be 
sides  which  you  want  a  trip  to  Saratoga.  So 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  6/ 

there  goes  another  payment  of  two  thousand  and 
eighty  dollars.  That  makes  three  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  eighty,  you  see.  All  we  have  left 
for  everything  else — wardrobe,  washing,  servants, 
street-cars,  hack-hire,  and  sundries — is  only  eleven 
hundred  and  twenty  dollars.  Can  we  fetch  the 
twelve  months  round  on  that  ?  I  don't  know  yet. 
But  I'm  sure,  we  ought  to  wait  and  see,  before  we 
branch  out  any  wider.  Just  look  at  it,  my  dear 
petsy  posy,  for  yourself." 

"  I  hate  arithmetic,"  was  the  answer  which  dear 
petsy  posy  accorded  to  this  painstaking  exposition 
of  weighty  facts ;  "  I  always  did  hate  it  and  al 
ways  shall." 

There  are  some  persons  so  constituted  that 
they  will  get  furious  with  a  thermometer  for  prov 
ing  that  a  room  is  warm  after  they  have  pro 
nounced  it  cold.  Olympia,  who  already  felt  dis 
contented  with  her  husband  for  bringing  her  into 
these  commonplace  rooms,  was  little  less  than 
angry  at  him  because  his  arguments  in  favor  of 
retaining  them  were  unanswerable.  She  did  not 


68  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

care  one  straw  for  his  reasons,  except  to  hate 
them  for  controverting  her  wishes. 

"I  did  think  that  I  should  be  allowed  to  live  in 
some  style  while  I  was  in  Washington/'  she  con 
tinued  to  pout  "This  kind  of  thing,"  with  a 
disdainful  glance  at  her  furnishings,  "  I  suppose 
I  can  bear  it,  if  I  must ;  but  I  do  say  that  it  is  a 
very  great  disappointment  to  me." 

Having  been  married  before,  John  Vane  was 
not  much  astonished  at  this  persistence,  but  he 
could  not  help  being  grieved  by  it.  It  did  seem 
to  him  rather  hard  that  a  wife  whom  he  had  taken 
out  of  the  enforced  frugality  of  a  boarding-house 
should  be  just  as  eager  for  grandeur  and  as  hostile 
to  saving  as  if  she  had  been  reared  in  the  lap  of 
luxury  and  had  brought  him  a  fortune.  Further 
more,  a  sad  doubt,  which  has  dolorously  surprised 
many  a  husband  beside  him,  now  sprang  upon 
him  for  the  first  time.  "  Is  it  possible,"  he  asked 
himself,  "that  she  is  not  going  to  be  satisfied  with 
succeeding  through  my  success,  but  means  to 
make  her  own  glory  the  centre  of  our  life?" 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  69 

The  first  Mrs.  Vane,  whatever  her  shortcom 
ings  in  other  respects,  had  been  content  with 
such  an  abode  as  he  could  pay  for,  and  had  taken 
a  pride  in  his  growing  business.  But  here  was  a 
new  style  of  helpmeet ;  a  helpmeet  who  appar 
ently  did  not  propose  to  live  for  him ;  who,  on 
the  contrary,  intended  that  he  should  live  for  her, 
and  that  without  regard  to  balancing  his  bank 
account.  She  had  got  a  Congressman  ;  but  that 
almost  continental  fact  did  not  satisfy  her:  she 
must  have  her  own  separate  empire  and  glory. 
In  short,  Vane  began  dimly  to  suspect  (although 
he  did  not  at  all  know  how  to  phrase  the  matter 
to  himself)  that  he  had  married  a  "  girl  of  the  l 
period,"  that  fairest  and  greediest  of  all  vampires. 
Being  love-bewitched,  however,  he  did  not  really 
believe  in  his  calamity,  and  much  less  burst  forth 
in  wrath  or  lamentation. 

"  Well,  my  dear,  we'll  see  about  it,"  he  said, 
cheeringly.  "  We'll  keep  our  eyes  open  for  some 
better  shanty  than  this,  and  if  the  dollars  seem 
plenty  we'll  pop  into  it." 


7O  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

This  conditional  promise  of  finer  surroundings 

Olympia  tacitly  accepted  as  a  positive  agreement 

• 

to  provide  the  same,  and  went  out  that  very  day 
in  search  of  first-class  apartments,  returning 
much  annoyed  at  finding  none  vacant.  To  soothe 
her  disappointment  she  got  fifty  dollars  from  her 
husband,  purchased  such  damask  curtains  as 
'could  be  had  therefor,  and  so  embellished  her 
parlor/  Vane  winced  a  little ;  as  a  business  man  he 
saw  that  this  was  a  poor  way  to  prepare  for  getting 
into  better  lodgings  ;  as  a  business  man  also  he 
hated  to  spend  money  in  lending  attractions  to 
another  person's  property.  But  he  tried  to  per 
suade  himself  that  he  had  got  off  tolerably  cheap, 
and  that  his  wife  would  learn  economy  and  self- 
control  in  the  course  of  time.  Then,  like  many 
another  Congressman  who  cannot  rule  his  own 
expenditures,  he  "turned  his  attention  to  reforming 
those  of  the  nation. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  get  in  his  bill 
for  the  abolition  of  the  franking  privilege.  He 
had  written  it  out  months  ago,  and  touched  it  up 


HONEST  JOIIX    VANE.  /I 

ever  so  many  times  since.  After  pulling  aside 
those  damask  curtains  in  order  to  give  himself 
some  light,  he  took  his  well-scratched  manuscript 
out  of  his  trunk,  and  read  it  to  himself  aloud. 
As  is  frequently  the  case  with  persons  little  ac 
customed  to  composition,  the  sound  of  his  own 
periods  was  agreeable  to  him,  and  the  sense  im 
pressive,  not  to  say  sublime.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  it  was  a  good  bill ;  that  it  was,  all  over  its 
face  and  down  its  back,  an  honest  man's  bill ;  that 
every  respectable  fellow  in  the  House  would  have 
to  vote  for  it.  He  decided  to  make  a  clean  copy 
of  it  just  as  it  was,  without  another  syllable  of 
useless  alteration.  He  had  just  squared  himself 
and  spread  out  his  legs  and  put  his  head  on  one 
side  for  this  "  chore,"  and  was  in  the  very  act  of 
flourishing  his  right  hand  over  the  foolscap  pre 
paratory  to  executing  a  fine  opening  capital,  when 
he  was  arrested  by  a  ring  at  his  door-bell.  Pres 
ently  in  stampqd  his  old  acquaintance  and  most 
adroit  wire-puller,  Mr.  Darius  Dorman,  followed 
by  a  stranger.  • 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

NO  miracle  having  of  late  been  performed  for 
the  benefit  of  Dorman   (who,  indeed,  may 
have  been  altogether  beyond  the  pale  of  heavenly 
interferences),  he  was  as  ungraciously  fashioned 
and  as  disagreeably  discolored  as  ever. 

Earthly  soap  and  water,  it  seemed,  could  not 
wash  away  that  suspicious  smear  of  charcoal  and 
ashes  which  constituted  his  complexion,  or  which, 
perhaps,  only  hid  its  real  tint. 

Blurred,  blotched,  smoke-dried,  wilted,  uneasy, 
and  agile,  he  looked  and  acted,  as  he  had  always 
looked  and  acted,  to  mortal  eyes,  like  either  a 
singed  monkey  or  a  bleached  goblin,  who  had 
some  unquenched  sparks  on  his  hide  that  would 
not  let  him  be  quiet. 

—  To  this  brownie  in  bad  preservation  the  person 
who  accompanied  him  offered  a  pleasing  contrast. 
He  was  a  man  of  near  seventy,  but  still  slender 

(72) 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  73 

in  build  and  of  an  upright  carriage ;  his  face  was 
long,  venerably  wrinkled,  firm  in  expression,  and 
yet  unctuous  with  mildness  and  benevolence  ;  his 
hair  was  long,  straight,  thin,  and  of  a  gray  which 
verged  on  the  reverend  gloss  of  pure  whiteness  ; 
his  whole  air  was  marked  by  a  curious  staidness 
and  circumspectness  which  seemed  to  promise 
ascetic  virtue.  One  would  have  said  that  here 
was  a  soul  which  had  dwelt  long  on  the  pillar  of 
self-sacrifice.  If  there  was  a  certain  sharpness 
amounting  almost  to  cunning  in  the  half-shut, 
faded,  cold  gray  eyes,  it  might  have  been  acquired, 
of  course,  by  wary  spying  into  the  ambushes  of 
this  wicked  world,  and  be  only  a  proof  of  that 
serpent-like  wisdom  which  goes  properly  with  the 
harmlessness  of  the  dove.  If  there  was  a  show 
of  grip  about  the  close-shut  mouth,  as  though  it 
could  hang  on  to  an  advantage  like  a  mastiff  to  a 
bone,  perhaps  it  might  have  resulted  from  a 
dogged  struggle  to  hold  fast  to  the  right.  On 
the  whole,  this  gentleman's  appearance  was  well 
calculated  to  inspire  instant  and  entire  confidence, 


74  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

providing  the  beholder  were  disposed  by  educa 
tion  to  put  faith  in  exteriors  of  the  Puritanized 
cast. 

"  How  are  you,  Vane?"  exclaimed  Dorman,  cor 
dially  extending  one  of  those  hands  which  had 
such  an  air  of  having  been  rubbed  in  a  fireplace. 
"Glad  to  see  you  at  last  where  you  belong;  glad 
to  see  one  right  man  in  the  right  place.  Let  me 
make  you  acquainted  with  the  Honorable  Mr. 
Sharp,  one  of  the  leading  members  from  the  good 
old  Whetstone  State/'  he  explained  referring  to 
a  well-known  Commonwealth.  "Of  course  you 
have  heard  of  Mr.  Simon  Sharp,  the  great  finan 
cier  and  practical  statesman.  Mr.  Sharp,  this  is 
honest  John  Vane,  the  workingman's  man,  the 
plain  people's  man.  By  Beelzebub ! "  he  added 
(for  he  had  very  odd  fashions  of  swearing),  "  I'm 
glad  to  bring  you  two  gentlemen  together.  You 
both  travel  the  honest  track.  You'll  make  a 
team." 

Mr.  Vane  and  Mr.  Sharp  shook  hands  respect 
fully,  and  said  what  pleasant  things  they  could 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  75 

think  of.  Our  member  noted  with  some  surprise 
that  his  famous  and  puissant  visitor  had  a  sin 
gularly  soft,  ingratiating,  obsequious,  nay,  even 
sycophantic  utterance,  and  that  his  manner  was 
not  only  deferential,  but  slightly  anxious  and 
nervous  and  embarrassed,  as  if  he  were  a  needy 
tradesman  eager  to  propitiate  a  difficult  customer. 
Moreover,  he  \vas  unctuously  and  little  less  than 
stickily  profuse  in  compliments,  pouring  them 
forth  with  a  liberality  which  reminded  one  of  oil 
dripping  from  a  castor-bean  press.  He  repeated 
over  and  over  such  lubricating  commonplaces  as, 
"  I  thank  you  truly,  Mr.  Vane.  You  are  really 
much  too  kind.  You  do  me  too  high  an  honor. 
This  from  you,  my  dear  sir,  is  more  than  I 
deserve.  I  am  delighted  to  have  the  pleasure  of 
your  acquaintance.  I  hope  to  learn  statesman 
ship  from  you,  sir.  I  trust  that  you  will  find  me 
a  zealous  scholar.  We  have  all  been,  as  it  were, 
waiting  for  you.  O,  thank  you  kindly  !  "  when  a 
seat  was  urged  upon  him.  "  You  are  really  too 
urbane  and  thoughtful.  I  thank  you  heartily." 


76  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

At  last,  emerging  with  difficulty  from  a  wilder 
ness  of  bowings  and  scrapings,  they  all  three  got 
settled  creakily  on  such  unstable  chairs  as  the 
dingy  parlor  afforded.  Mr.  Dorman  now  opened 
his  dry,  blackened,  baked  lips,  and  took  the  lead 
in  the  conversation. 

"  Just  in  Washington,  Vane.  I  came  on  about 
my  little  job,  and  I  thought  I'd  drop  in  to  see 
how  you  found  yourself ;  and  as  I  was  strolling 
along  I  met  Friend  Sharp." 

Here  he  glanced  at  that  worthy  person,  who 
was  thereby  driven  to  nod  and  smile  in  confirma 
tion  of  the  tale,  although  the  fact  was  that  Dor 
man  had  looked  him  up  at  his  residence  and 
besought  him  eagerly  to  call  on  Vane. 

"  And  it's  a  lucky  circumstance,  I  think,"  con 
tinued  Darius,  with  one  of  his  unpleasing  smiles, 
— a  grimace  which  seemed  to  express  suffering 
rather  than  joy,  as  though  he  had  sat  down  upon 
'  an  unhealed  burn.  "  You  see,  Friend  Sharp  is 
'  one  of  the  oldest  sailors  in  this  ship  of  state,  and 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  77 

knows  all  the  ropes,  and  the  way  to  the  caboose, 
and  everything." 

"  O,  Mr.  Dorman  !  you  do  me  too  much  hon 
or!"  put  in  Mr.  Sharp,  with  a  meek,  uneasy 
air.  "  I  scarcely  know  a  rope,  and  know  nothing 
about  the  caboose.  You  are  really  too  obliging. 
But  you  mean  a  compliment,  and  I  thank  you 
kindly." 

"  I  must  have  my  little  joke,"  winked  Darius. 
"  Well,  at  any  rate,  Friend  Sharp  is  a  man  who 
knows  how  to  keep  out  of  traps  and  to  show 
others  how  to  steer  clear  of  them.  Now  you, 
Vane,  have  got  a  great  measure  on  your  mind 
and  conscience.  It's  a  great  and  good  measure  ; 
there's  no  use  in  disputing  it.  The  only  ques 
tion  is,  whether  it  is  best  to  push  it  now,  or 
wait  awhile.  Will  hurrying  it  up  do  good  or  do 
harm  ?  Mr.  Simon  Sharp  is  just  the  person  to 
tell  you." 

"  Well,  gentlemen,"  said  Vane,  with  an  elevat 
ing  sense  of  making  a  revelation,  while  the  truth 
was  that  Sharp  already  knew  all  about  his  pro- 


78  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

posed  bill — "well,  gentlemen,  I  want  to  abolish 
the  franking  privilege." 

The  member  from  the  old  Whetstone  State 
bowed,  stretched  out  one  of  his  smiles  into  an 
adulatory  grin,  and  whispered  in  his  greasiest 
voice,  "  Certainly,  Mr.  Vane,  certainly  !  " 

"  You  agree  with  me  !  "  rejoiced  Honest  John. 
"Well,  I'm  glad  of  securing  one  leading  voice  in 
the  House." 

"  In  principle— in  principle,"  Mr.  Sharp  con 
tinued  to  grin  ;  "  yes,  in  principle  I  entirely  agree 
with  you.  You  have  suggested  a  measure  which 
touches  my  conscience,  and  I  need  not  say  that 
I  thank  you  kindly.  You  will  find  many  sympa 
thizers  with  your  idea  in  Congress,  sir.  All  hon 
est,  fair-minded,  intelligent,  and  patriotic  mem 
bers  long  to  do  away  with  that  expensive  nuis 
ance  which  so  corrupts  our  national  morality  and 
overloads  our  mail-bags.  The  trouble  is  that  the 
fellows  who  want  a  re-election —  "  And  here  the 
good  soul  shook  his  venerable  head  sadly  over 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  79 

the  character  of  the  fellows  who  wanted  a  re-elec 
tion. 

"  But  ain't  there  enough  popular  men  and  sound 
patriots  to  carry  it,  in  spite  of  those  chaps  ?"  ask 
ed  Vane,  anxiously. 

"  You  see,  there  are  so  many  who  want  a  re 
election!"  explained  Mr.  Sharp,  gently.  "In  fact, 
almost  everybody  gets  around  to  that  state  of 
mind  after  two  years." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  all  Congressmen 
think  of  is  how  to  get  another  term  ?"  exclaimed 
Honest  John,  rather  indignant  at  the  insinuation. 

"  No,  no,  by  no  means ! "  implored  the  Whet 
stone  State  representative.  "  Pray  don't  under 
stand  me  as  even  suggesting  such  a  calumny. 
They  think  of  many  other  things,"  he  added, 
remembering  certain  objects  of  general  interest 
which  he  did  not  choose  to  mention  ;  "  but  this 
particular  measure,  you  see — the  stoppage  of  elec 
tioneering  documents,  etc. — touches  every  man's 
chances  in  the  end." 

"I    see  it   does,"    grumbled    our   upright  and 


SO  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

brave  member.  "But  what  has  that  got  to  do 
with  a  fellow's  duty  ? " 

This  allusion  to  duty  may  not  have  seemed 
germane  or  important  to  Mr.  Sharp ;  at  all  events 
he  did  not  give  himself  the  trouble  to  oil  it  with 
any  commentaries. 

"  Horace  Greeley  worked  at  this  abuse  for 
years,"  he  pursued.  "  Horace  was  an  honest 
politician  and  a  very  potent  editor.  He  did  his 
best,  and  he  failed." 

"And  you  mean  to  say  that  a  man  who  isn't 
a  shaving  to  Horace  Greeley  won't  succeed  any 
better  than  he  did,"  inferred  John  Vane,  with  a 
lowliness  which  shows  that  he  had  some  sense. 

"  I  don't  mean  to  say  that  you  are  only  a 
shaving  to  Mr.  Greeley,"  responded  Mr.  Sharp, 
politely.  "  By  no  means,  sir.  On  the  contrary, 
you  quite  remind  me  of  Mr.  Greeley,"  he  added, 
running  his  eyes  over  Vane's  cherubic  face  and 
portly  figure.  "  He  was  not  so  well-favored  a 
man  as  you,  sir ;  but  still  you  remind  me  of  him, 
— remind  me  very  agreeably.  Both  self-made 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  8 1 

men,  also  ;  I  say  it  with  profound  respect."  He 
bowed  here,  and  indeed  he  kept  bowing  all  the 
while,  like  an  earthenware  mandarin.  "And  both 
honest,  known  to  the  world  as  such,  eminent  for 
it ! "  he  emphasized,  with  a  grin  which  could  have 
bitten  a  quarter  out  of  a  mince-pie.  "  Ah,  well,  sir  ! 
so  much  the  worse!"  he  resumed.  "An  honest 
man  can't  do  away  with  the  franking  privilege. 
A  rogue  might,  for  he  would  offer  something  in 
place  of  it,  and  so,  perhaps,  carry  his  point  by 
a  sort  of  bargain.  No,  Mr.  Vane  ;  you  must 
really  excuse  me  for  contradicting  your  honorable 
hopes,  but  a  gentleman  of  your  character  can't 
repeal  the  franking  privilege, — at  least  not  for 
years  to  come.  That  is  my  sorrowful,  but  candid 
belief." 

John  Vane  stared  at  Mr.  Simon  Sharp  with 
wonder  and  dismay.  The  venerable  man  had 
begun  all  right  on  this  matter,  and  then  in  the 
most  rational  and  natural  manner,  had  ended  all 
wrong.  Was  this  the  way  that  people  learned  to 


82  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

reason    by  dint  of   sitting  for  several   terms   in 
Congress  ? 

"  If  you  could  only  become  useful, — generally 
useful,  you  understand, — you  might  try  your  bill 
with  some  chance  of  success,"  resumed  Mr.  Sharp, 
after  some  moments  of  meditation.  "A  man 
who  is  known  to  be  useful" — and  he  laid  a  very, 
strong  emphasis  on  the  word, — "  such  a  man  can 
propose  almost  anything,  and  carry — well,  carry 
something." 

"  Well,  how  can  I  get  to'  be  useful  ? "  inquired 
the  zealous  neophyte  from  Slowburgh. 

"  I'll  tell  you,"  smiled  the  veteran,  at  the  same 
time  hitching  his  chair  forward  confidentially,  as 
if  being  useful  were  a  sort  of  patent-right  or 
other  precious  secret,  not  to  be  communicated  to 
the  public. 
I 


CHAPTER     IX. 

"OPECIAL  legislation  is  the  great  field  for 
v3  What  I  call  Congressional  usefulness"  pur 
sued  Mr.  Sharp,  again  bringing  down  a  violent 
emphasis  on  the  word,  as  if  he  were  trying  to 
drive  it  into  his  listener's  head. 

"  Ah  !  is  it  ?  "  stared  John  Vane.  "  That's 
news  to  me.  I  thought  general  legislation  was 
the  big  thing, — reform,  foreign  relations,  sec 
tional  questions,  constitutional  points,  and  so  on  ; 
I  thought  those  were  the  diggings  to  get  a  repu 
tation  out  of." 

"All  exploded,  my  dear  sir!"  answered  Mr. 
Sharp.  "All  gone  out  with  Calhoun  and  Web 
ster,  or  at  the  latest,  with  Lincoln  and  Stanton. 
All  dead  issues,  as  dead  as  the  war.  Special 
legislation — or,  as  some  people  prefer  to  call  it, 
finance — is  the  sum  and  substance  of  Congres 
sional  business  in  our  day.  It  is  the  great  field, 

(83) 


84  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

and  it  pays  for  the  working.  Jt  pays  every  way. 
Your  vote  helps  people,  and  they  are  grateful 
and  help  you.  Your  vote  brings  something  to 
pass,  and  the '  public  sees  that  it  does,  and 
respects  you.  Work  into  finance,  Mr."  Vane," 
exhorted  Mr.  Sharp,  gently  moving  his  hand  in 
a  spiral,  as  if  to  signify  the  insinuation  of  a  cork 
screw,  "work  slow-ly  into — finance — so  to  call 
it.  Take  up  some  great  national  enterprise,  and 
engineer  it  through.  Get  your  name  associated 
with  a  navigation  scheme,  or  a  railroad  scheme,  to 
advance  commerce,  you  understand,  or  to  move 
the  crops."  And  as  he  alluded  to  these  noble 
purposes,  his  voice  became  little  less  than  rever 
ential.  "  The  millions  yet  unborn — you  under 
stand,"  here  he  seemed  to  be  suggesting  hints  for 
a  speech  in  advocacy  of  said  scheme, — "  millions 
yet  unborn  will  have  reason  to  remember  you. 
Capital  will  become  your  friend.  And  capital — 
ah,  Mr.  Vane,  there's  a  word  !  My  very  blood 
curdles  when  I  think  of  the  power  and  majesty 
of  capital.  This  land,  sir,  this  whole  gigantic 


HONEST   JOHN    VANK.  85 

Republic,  with  its  population  of  forty  millions, 
its  incomparably  productive  and  energetic  indus 
try,  and  its  vast  network  of  continental  communi 
cations,  is  the  servant,  and  I  had  almost  said  the 
creature,  of  capital.  Capital  guides  it  by  its  wis 
dom  and  sustains  it  by  its  beneficence.  Capital 
is  to  be,  and  already  is,  its  ruler.  Make  capital 
your  friend.  Do  something  for  it,  and  secure  its 
gratitude.  Link  your  fortunes  and  your  name 
with  some  gigantic  financial  enterprise.  Then, 
when  you  have  won  the  reputation  of  advancing 
the  industrial  interests  of  the  country,  and  gath 
ered  around  you  hosts  of  admirers  and  friends, 
you  can  return  to  your  pet  measure.  Now,  there 
is  my  advice — the  advice  of  an  old  hand.  Doesn't 
it  strike  you  as  worth  considering  ?  My  maxim, 
as  you  see,  is  slow  and  sure.  I  also  have  my 
little  reform  at  heart,  but  I  keep  it  waiting  until 
I  can  get  strong  enough  to  push  it,  and  mean 
time  I  strengthen  myself  by  helping  other  peo 
ple.  Never  mind  now  what  that  reform  is,"  he 
added,  noting  a  gleam  of  inquiry  in  Vane's  eye ; 


86  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

"you  will  hear  of  it  some  day.  Let  us  come 
to  the  immediate  and  the  practical.  While  I 
make  my  humble  little  project  bide  its  time,  I 
am  busy  with  a  scheme  which  combines  capital 
and  industry,  a  scheme  of  national  importance 
and  magnitude.  I  don't  mind  mentioning  it  to 
you.  It  is  the  great  Subfluvial  Tunnel  Road, 
meant  to  run  through  our  country  from  north  to 
south,  under  the  Mississippi  River,  uniting  Lake 
Superior  with  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  It  is  a  gigan 
tic  idea :  you  must  admit  it.  Of  course,  the 
business  minutiae  and  prospects  of  it  are  beyond 
me,"  he  conceded,  with  an  air  of  innocence  and 
simplicity  which  seemed  to  relieve  him  of  all 
responsibility  as  to  those  points.  "  There  I  have 
to  trust  to  the  judgment  of  business  men.  But 
where  my  information  fails,  Mr.  Dorman  here 
can  fill  the  gap.  Dorman,  suppose  you  let  our 
friend  into  this  if  he  wants  to  come  in." 

John  Vane,  being  quite  beyond  his  honest 
depth  by  this  time,  had  nothing  to  say  to  the 
Great  Subfluvial  either  in  condemnation  or  praise, 
but  merely  stared  in  expectant  silence. 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  87 

"  It  is  the  job  I  gave  you  a  hint  about  in  Slow- 
burgh,"  began  Darius  Dorman,  turning  upon  his 
member  a  pair  of  sombre,  lurid,  smoky  eyes, 
which  were  at  once  utterly  unearthly  and  utterly 
worldly.  "We  have  just  got  it  well  underway." 

"  What !,  stock  taken  ?"  exclaimed  Vane,  amaz 
ed  that  he  had  not  heard  of  such  a  huge  financial 
success. 

Darius  smiled,  as  a  slave-trader  might  smile 
upon  a  stalwart,  unsuspicious  negro  who  should 
express  a  curiosity  to  see  the  interior  of  his 
schooner. 

"  The  subscription  is  to  be  started  by  the 
government,"  he  proceeded.  "  That  is,  the  gov 
ernment  will  loan  the  capital  necessary  to  build 
the  tunnel,  and  then  secure  itself  by  a  mortgage 
on  the  same.  No  particular  risk,  you  see,  to 
capitalists,  especially  as  they  will  get  the  first 
issue  of  stock  cheap,  and  won't  be  called  on  to 
pay  in  a  heavy  percentage.  What  they  don't 
want  to  keep  they  can  sell  to  the  outside  public. 
— the  raft  of  small  investors.  Now,  bankers  and 


88  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

financiers  won't  neglect  such  a  chance  as  that ; 
they  will  pile  in  as  fast  and  as  plenty  as  need  be. 
With  a  government  loan  to  start  on,  the  stock  is 
sure  to  be  floated  and  the  thing  finished ;  and 
after  that  is  done,  why,  it  will  go  on  pretty  much 
as  railroads  do, — gradually  increase  its  business, 
and  in  the  end  pay  well,  like  railroads." 

Just  here  there  was  a  malicious  twinkle  in  his 
charcoal-pits  of  eyes,  as  though  he  were  thinking 
of  the  numberless  widows  and  orphans  and  other 
unprotected  creatures  whose  little  all  had  gone 
into  railroads  without  ever  bringing  out  a  divi 
dend.  At  the  same -time,  he  glanced  suddenly 
at  his  grimy  hands  and  rubbed  them  uneasily 
against  each  other,  as  if  he  would  have  been 
glad  to  get  them  clean  for  once  in  his  existence, 
or  as  if  the  maculations  on  them  itched  and 
scalded  quite  intolerably. 

"  O,  there's  nothing  unusual  or  extra  smart 
about  the  enterprise ! "  he  resumed,  perhaps  de 
tecting  in  honest  John  Vane's  countenance  a 
gleam  of  suspicion.  "  It's  about  the  way  rail- 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  89 

roads  in  general  are  got  up,  except  the  one 
notion  of  a  government  loan  to  start  the  thing. 
That  is  new  and  patented.  Don't  mention  that 
for  the  Devil's  sake  ! "  he  implored,  with  an  out 
burst  of  his  characteristically  eccentric  profanity. 
"  Keep  as  dark  as  hell  about  the  whole  thing. 
All  we  want  of  you  is  to  bear  the  job  in  mind, 
and  when  the  House  comes  to  the  question  of 
the  loan,  give  us  your  voice  and  vote." 

"  It  will  be  a  grand  thing  for  the  country,"  put 
in  Mr.  Sharp,  seeing  that  Vane  pondered. 

"O,  magnificent !"  exclaimed  Dorman.  "Give 
us  another  New  York  at  New  Orleans.  Double 
the  value  of  land  in  the  Mississippi  Valley." 

"  Unite  the  North  and  South,"  continued  Sharp. 
"  Close  up  the  bloody  chasm.  Bind  together  the 
national  unity  in  chains  of  cast-iron." 

"  Pour  the  wild  rice  of  Green  Bay  upon  the 
dinner-tables  of  our  working-men,"  responded 
Dorman. 

"Bring  the  Menomonie  Indians  within  easy 
reach  of  Christian  missionaries,"  was  Sharp's 
next  word  in  this  litany. 


9°  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

"  Providing  the  whole  tribe  hasn't  already  got 
to  the  happy  hunting-grounds,"  suggested  Dor- 
man. 

The  Whetstone  statesman  glanced  at  the  busi 
ness  man,  and  the  business  man  glanced  at  the 
Whetstone  statesman.  Apparently  (only  John 
Vane  did  not  perceive  it)  the  two  came  very  near 
laughing  in  each  other's  faces. 

"  Besides,  it  will  pay  well,  at  least  to  first  in 
vestors,"  resumed  Dorman. 

"  Yes,  I  should  think  it  might  pay  them  well," 
answered  John  Vane,  with  just  a  suspicion  of 
satire  in  his  tone. 

"If  you  should  ever  care  to  invest,  by  the  way," 
suggested  the  business  man,  as  though  that  were 
a  thing  which  he  had  just  thought  of,  and  which 
would  of  course  not  influence  his  representative's 
decision,  "  if  you  should  ever  fancy  putting  some 
thing  of  your  own  in,  we  can  promise  you  a  sure 
return  for  it.  You  shall  have  your  pick, — stock 
at  the  opening  figure, — corner  lots  cheap  around 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  QI 

the  stations, — something  paying  and  safe,  you 
know,  something  salable  if  you  don't  want  it." 

"  Well,  I'll  think  of  it,"  nodded  Vane,  who  had 
already  made  up  his  honest  mind  to  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  Great  Subfluvial,  judging  it  to  be 
a  scheme  for  swindling  the  government  and  the 
general  public. 

"  Do  so,"  begged  Mr.  Simon  Sharp,  his  broad 
array  of  yellow  teeth  showing  in  a  manner  which 
vaguely  reminded  one  of  the  phrase,  "  dead  men's 
bones  and  all  uncleanness."  The  member  from 
the  old  Whetstone  State  seemed  at  the  moment 
to  be  as  full  of  teeth  as  ever  a  freshly  opened 
tomb  was  of  skeletons.  It  was  an  error  in  him 
to  make  exhibition  of  those  ravening  tushes  and 
grinders ;  they  neutralized  abominably  the  ex 
pression  of  integrity  and  piety  which  gleamed 
from  the  Puritanic  lacker  of  his  venerable  mug. 
"Do,  Mr.  Vane,"  he  continued,  "give  the  project 
your  intelligent  consideration,  and  see  if  it  is  not 
worthy  of  your  highly  reputable  and  valuable  sup 
port.  And  now,  sir,  I  am  compelled,  very  much 


92  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

against  my  wishes,  to  bid  you  a  good  morning* 
Delighted  to  have  made  your  acquaintance,  and 
to  welcome  you  as  a  brother  Congressman. 
Don't  go  to  the  door  with  me,  don't !  You  are 
altogether  too  urbane.  I  thank  you  kindly." 


CHAPTER  X. 

"TJONEST,  able  old  fellow,  that  Sharp,"  ob- 

J~l  served  Dorman,  as  soon  as  the  Whetstone 
patriot  had  fairly  bowed  and  smirked  himself  out 
of  the  house.  "  Glad  he  happened  to  drop  in  on 
you  while  I  was  here." 

"  See  here,  Darius!"  broke  out  Vane,  still  Hon 
est  John  Vane,  proud  of  his  noble  sobriquet  and 
resolved  to  hold  fast  to  it.  "  I'm  not  going  to  go 
for  a  bill  merely  because  there's  money  in  it,  and 
some  of  that  money  offers  to  come  my  way. 
That  ain't  my  style." 

"  I  know  it  is  n't,"  conceded  Dorman,  bowing 
humbly  to  this  tempest  of  integrity  and  honorable 
self-esteem,  probably  for  the  sake  of  weathering 
it  sooner. 

"  Then  what  do  you  offer  me  cheap  stock  for, 
and  corner  lots  at  a  nominal  rigger,  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing,  to  get  me  to  vote  your  loan  ?  Don't 

(93) 


94  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

you  know  and  don't  I  know  that  you  are  trying 
to  bribe  me  ?  " 

"  You  take  your  risk,  don't  you  ? "  argued  the 
man  of  affairs.  "  I  don't  offer  you  money,  but 
merely  a  business  risk." 

"  What  risk  is  there  when  the  government  is  to 
construct  the  road,  and  to  give  it  such  a  credit 
that  the  stock  can't  help  selling  ?  You  might  as 
well  talk  about  the  risk  of  taking  United  States 
bonds  at  half  the  market  value.  You  can't  fool 
me  that  way,  old  boy.  I'm  a  business  man  my 
self.  I  see  as  plainly  as  you  do  that  the  Great 
Subfluvial  is  to  be  built  at  the  expense  of  the 
Treasury  for  the  benefit  of  directors  and  officers 
and  boss  stockholders,  who  will  take  the  shares 
at  fifty,  say,  and  sell  them  out  at  par,  and  then 
leave  the  whole  thing  on  the  hands  of  the  small  in 
vestors  and  Uncle  Sam.  That's  what  you  fellows 
mean  to  do,  and  want  me  to  help  you  do.  I  don't 
see  it." 

"  John  Vane,  if  you  are  really  honest  John 
Vane,  you'll  allow  that  one  good  turn  deserves 
another,"  insinuated  Dorman. 


HONEST   JOHN    VAX  1C.  95 

"  I  know  you  think  you  put  me  here,"  replied 
Vane,  who  already  began  to  feel  the  oats  on 
which  Congressmen  feed,  and  to  attribute  to  his 
own  mettle  his  advancement  from  the  position  of 
"  wheel-horse  "  to  that  of  "  leader."  "  You  did  say 
a  word  in  season  for  me  at  the  caucus  :  I  own  it. 
But  proposing  is  one  thing,  and  getting  the  nomi 
nation  is  another,  and  carrying  the  election  is  a 
third.  Could  you  have  shoved  through  any  other 
man  ?  Why  didn't  you  try  it  ?  You  saw  what 
horse  could  win  the  race,  and  you  bet  on  it.  It 
was  the  name  of  Honest  John  Vane, — the  man  of 
the  plain  people, — the  self-made  man, — that's  what 
took  the  caucus  and  the  ballot-boxes.  And  now 
you  want  me  to  throw  all  those  claims  to  respect 
and  power  overboard ;  want  me  to  stop  being 
honest  and  to  tax  the  plain  people  uselessly; 
want  me  to  go  back  on  myself  and  my  best 
friends;  want  me  to  follow  in  Bummer's  dirty 
trail.  Suppose  I  should  do  it  ?  Why,  I  should 
end  like  Bummer  ;  I  should  be  laid  on  the  shelf. 
O,  I'm  not  ungrateful  for  what  you  did  toward 


g6  HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  % 

the  nomination  !  I'll .  do  anything  in  reason  for 
you,  old  boy, — get  you  a  collectorship  or  post- 
mastership,  anything  that'll  bear  telling  of.  But 
I  won't  help  plunder  the  Treasury  of  forty  mil 
lions,  and  the  stock-buying  public  of  twice  as 
much  more,  merely  to  give  you  a  hundred  thou 
sand  and  myself  five  thousand.  I  tell  you 
squarely,  and  you  may  as  well  understand  it  first 
as  last,  that  I  wont  go  into  your  lobbying." 

"  Why,  this  is  the  way  everything  works  here," 
the  lobbyist  (for  such  he  was)  at  last  asserted  in 
his  desperation.  "  Bills  of  this  sort  slide  through 
every  year.  Some  are  upset,  but  who  upsets 
them  ?  Fellows  who  haven't  been  retained,  or 
who  have  rival  bills  to  push.  I  tell  you,  John 
Vane,  that  more  than  half  your  brother  patriots 
in  the  Capital  do  something  in  this  line.  The 
main  work  of  Congress  is  done  out  of  sight,  like 
that  of  a  mole,  or  by  Beelzebub !  any  other  un 
derground  creature.  Making  such  laws  as  are 
needed,  and  voting  such  appropriations  as  the  de 
partments  demand,  wouldn't  worry  through  a  ten 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  97 

day's  session.  The  real  business  of  your  legisla 
tors  is  running  party  politics,  clearing  scores  with 
your  fuglemen,  protecting  vested  interests-  which 
can  pay  for  it,  voting  relief  bills  for  a  percentage 
on  the  relief,  and  subsidizing  great  schemes  for  a 
share  of  the  subsidy.  A  good  Congressman  of 
the  present  day  is  the  silent  partner  of  every  job 
that  he  supports.  That's  what  I  meant  by  finan 
cial  legislation  when  I  urged  you  to  go  into  it. 
Don't  be  an  old-fashioned  dog-in-the-manger, 
John  Vane.  Go  with  the  crowd  and  humor  the 
crowd ;  let  others  have  their  fodder,  and  bite  in 
yourself.  Look  at  the  rafts  of  patriot  statesmen 
who  drive  their  carriages  and  keep  open  house. 
Do  you  suppose  they  do  it  off  their  salaries  ? 
Then  why  can't  you  do  it  off  your  salary,  instead 
of  huddling  into  these  two  little  rooms  and  travel 
ing  by  horse-car  ?  Is  it  because  they  know  how 
to  make  money  go  further  than  you  do  ?  No,  sir! 
They  take  their  little  stock  in  a  good  bill,  and 
then  pujt  it  through.  It's  the  common  thing  in 
Washington,  and  it's  got  to  be  the  correct  thing. 


9  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

And  you  can't  change-  it.  There's  a  boiler  inside 
this  boat  which  will  make  the  wheels  turn  round, 
no  matter  who  tries  to  hold  'em.  As  long  as 
there  is  special  legislation,  there  will  be  money  to 
be  made  by  it,  and  legislators  will  take  their  share. 
When  a  rich  financier  or  monopolist  comes  to 
a  poor  M.  C,  and  whispers  to  him,  I  want  a 
chance  to  pocket  a  million,  is  the  M.  C.  to  say, 
Pocket  it,  and  be  sure  not  to  give  me  any  ?  Will 
he,  as  your  human  nature  averages,  will  he  say  it  ? 
No,  sir!  he  says,  Let  me  have  a  percentage  ;  and 
I  assert  that  he's  right.  It's  the  natural  working 
of  humanity,  under  the  circumstances.  The  only 
thing  I  wonder  at  is,  that  Congressmen  are  con 
tent  with  so  little.  Most  of  'em  ain't  bold  and 
hearty  at  all.  They  are  pusillanimously  half 
honest.  Come,  Vane,  I  want  you  to  do  well  in 
the  world  of  politics,  and  I  want  you  to  begin  by 
supporting  the  Great  Subfluvial." 

"  Dorman,  I  have  the  greatest  mind  in  the  world 
to  expose  you,"  was  the  almost  heroic  response  of 
honest  John. 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  99 

"  I  should  contradict  and  disapprove  every  word 
of  your  exposure,"  laughed  the  unabashed  lobby 
ist.  "  Do  you  suppose  Congress  wants  subsidy 
legislation  ripped  open  and  exhibited  to  the  pub 
lic  ?  Congress  would  believe  you  and  would  ap 
point  a  committee  of  investigation,  and  then 
would  hush  the  matter  up.  Wait  till  you  have 
learned  your  business,  and  then  call  me  a  liar,  if 
you  can." 

And  so  the  interview  ended,  with  virtue  still 
unshaken,  but  vice  undiscouraged.  Darius  Dor- 
man  was  too  familiar  with  his  evil  trade  and  with 
the  society  in  which  it  had  hitherto  prospered,  to 
despair  of  finally  leading  his  representative  up  to 
the  manger  of  corruption.  He  narrated  the  sub 
stance  of  the  above  dialogue  to  the  Honorable 
Simon  Sharp  with  spasmodic  twinges  of  cheer-' 
less  gayety  which  resembled  the  "  cracked  and 
thin  laughter  heard  far  down  in  Hell." 

"  It  is  ludicrous,  I  must  confess,  Mr.  Dorman," 
sighed  the  representative  of  the  old  Whetstone 
State,  with  a  sad  shake  of  his  venerable  long 


IOO  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

head;  "but  painfully  so.  I'm  afraid  that  your 
friend  won't  come  to  much  in  Congress.  He 
won't  be  a  practical  statesman.  No  head  for 
finance." 

"  Don't  give  way  to  despondency  about,  him,  my 
benevolent  creature,"  answered  Darius,  shaking 
all  over  with  his  dolorous  mirth,  his  very  raiment, 
indeed,  quivering  and  undulating  with  it,  so  that 
^t  seemed  as  if  there  might  be  a  twitching  tail  in 
side  his  trousers.  "  I  have  looked  into  the  very 
bottom  of  John  Vane's  thimbleful  of  soul.  I 
know  every  sort  and  fashio'n  of  man  that  he  will 
make  up  into,  under  the  scissoring  of  diverse  cir 
cumstances.  John  has  no  character  of  his  own. 
He  has  had  neither  the  born  twist  nor  the  educa 
tion  to  give  him  one.  He  is  a  chameleon.  He 
takes  the  color  of  the  people  about  him.  If  his 
constituents  ever  find  him  out,  they  won't  call 
him  Honest  John  Vane,  but  Weathercock  John. 
I  He  went  straight  in  Slowburgh,  because  most 
.  folks  in  Slowburgh  go  straight.  After  he  has 
been  long  enough  in  Congress  he  will  be  like  the 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  IOI 

mass  of  Congressmen.  The  furnace  of  special 
legislation  and  the  bellows  of  Washington  opinion 
will  melt  him  over.  Don't  be  anxious  about  him  ; 
it  is  a  mere  matter  of  time.  He  is  pious,  I  grant ; 
but  so  are  you,  Friend  Sharp  ;  so  are  lots  more 
who  live  by  subsidy  bills.  It's  of  no  use  to  be 
inside  religion  when  you  are  also  inside  politics, 
as  politics  now  go.  Yes,  it  is  of  use  ;  it  varnishes 
the  politics  over  nicely ;  it  makes  the  special 
legislation  look  decent.  John  will  be  a  great  help 
to  us,  his  reputation  is  so  good.  We  must  keep 
going  for  him,  and  we  shall  finally  fetch  him. 
When  he  finds  that  the  majority  take  stock  in 
bills,  when  he  fairly  realizes  that  he  must  choose 
between  failing  as  a  watchdog  of  the  Treasury 
and  succeeding  as'  lapdog  of  the  lobby,  he  will  go 
for  the  spoils  solid,  or  at  least  vote  a  split  ticket. 
I'll  bet  on  bringing  him  over ;  I'll  bet  my  eternal 
happiness  on  it ! "  he  laughed,  as  though  the 
article  in  question  were  not  much  to  risk. 

"  You  are  a  very  plain-spoken  person,  Mr.  Dor- 
man,"  observed  the  Honorable  Sharp,  pulling  a 


IO2  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

decorously  long  face.  "Just  a  little — well,  let  us 
say  eccentric,  in  your  expressions,"  he  added  with 
his  obsequious  smile.  "  However,  to  come  to  the 
substance  of  what  you  tell  me,  I  must  admit  that 
it  is  encouraging.  You  really  cheer  me,  Mr.  Dor- 
man.  I  thank  you  kindly." 

Well,  we  have  described  the  first  Washing- 
tonian  temptation  which  stole  to  the  side  and 
whispered  in  the  ear  of  Honest  John  Vane.  Of 
course  it  was  not  the  last ;  the  goblins  of  the 
Mammonite  crew  dropped  in  upon  him  from  week 
to  week  and  almost  from  day  to  day ;  he  could 
hardly  put  out  his  hands  without  feeling  the 
pocket  of  a  ring  or  corporation  gaping  to  receive 
them.  If  he  accepted  an  invitation  to  a  supper, 
he  found  that  it  was  given  by  some  subsidy  or  re 
lief  bill.  If  a  gentleman  offered  him  a  cigar,  he 
discovered  that  it  was  scented  with  appropriations. 
If  he  helped  a  pretty  woman  into  a  street  car, 
she  asked  him  to  vote  for  her  statue  or  her  father's 
claim. 

The  lobby  proved  to  be  every  way  more  impos- 


HONEST   JOIIN^VANE.  IO3 

ing  and  potent  than  he  had  imagined  it.  True, 
some  of  its  representatives  were  men  whom  it 
was  easy  for  him  to  snub, — men  of  unwholesome 
skins,  greasy  garments,  brutish  manners,  filthy 
minds,  and  sickening  conversation  ;  men  who  so 
reeked  and  drizzled  with  henbane  tobacco  and 
cockatrice  whiskey  that  a  moderate  drinker  or 
smoker  would  recoil  from  them  as  from  a  cess 
pool  ;  men  whose  stupid,  shameless  boastings  of 
their  briberies  were  enough  to  warn  away  from 
them  all  but  the  very  elect  of  Satan.  But  there 
were  other  corruptionists  whom  he  could  not 
steel  himself  to  treat  rudely.  There  were  former 
members  of  Congress  whose  names  had  been 
trinnpeted  to  him  by  fame  in  his  youthful  days  ; 
decayed  statesmen,  who  were  now,  indeed,  noth 
ing  but  unfragrant  corpses,  breeding  all  manner 
of  moral  vermin  and  miasma,  but  who  still  had 
the  speech  of  patriotism  on  their  lips  and  the 
power  to  argue  speciously  about  the  "  needs  of 
the  country."  There  were  dashing  Brummels, 
who  seemed  to  him  much  finer' gentlemen  than 


IO4  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

himself,  asserting  a  high  position  in  society, 
wearing  fine  raiment  elegantly,  brilliant  in  con 
versation,  gracious  in  manner,  and  stately  in  port 
There  were  soldiers  of  the  late  war,  bearing  titles 
which  made  his  civilian  history  appear  mean,  and 
boasting  of  services  which  seemed  to  crown  them 
with  a  halo  of  patriotism. 

Hardest  of  all  for  a  novice  in  public  affairs  to 
face,  there  were  pundits  in  constitutional  law  and 
Congressional  precedent,  whose  deluges  of  politi 
cal  lore  overflowed  him  like  a  river,  and  stranded 
him  promptly  on  lone  islands  of  silence.  Then 
there  were  highly  salaried  and  quick-witted  agents 
of  great  business  houses,  which  he,  as  a  business 
man,  knew,  respected,  and  perhaps  feared.  Now 
and  then,  too,  there  was  a  woman,  audacious  and 
clever  and  stylish  and  handsome, — an  Aspasia 
who  was  willing  to  promise  money,  and  able  to 
redeem  her  promises  in  beauty.  Indeed,  it  some 
times  seemed  to  John  Vane  that  the  lobby  was  a 
cleverer  and  more  formidable  assemblage  than 
either  of  those  two  chambers  which  nominally 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  1 05 

gave  laws  to  the  nation.  More  and  more  dis 
tinctly,  as  the  session  went  on,  he  realized  that 
his  honesty  would  have  a  hard  fight  of  it,  and 
that  if  he  succeeded  in  keeping  it  from  being 
borne  to  the  ground,  he  would  grandly  deserve  to 
wear  his  cherished  sobriquet. 


CHAPTER    XI. 

IN  short,  honest  John  Vane  was  so  abundantly 
tempted  and  harassed  by  the  lobbyists  and 
their  Congressional  allies,  as  to  remind  us  of  that 
hardly  bested  saint  whom  we  have  all  seen  in 
ecclesiastical  picture-land,  surrounded  by  greater 
and  lesser  goblins  and  grotesque  manifestations 
of  Satan. 

Virtue  was  the  harder  for  him  to  follow  after, 
because  he  perceived  that  the  vicious  were  not 
only  enviably  prosperous,  but  walked  in  their  evil 
ways  undiscovered.  The  skinny  leanness  of  his 
own  honest  portcmonnaie  was  all  the  more  ob 
vious  to  him  when  he  contrasted  it  with  the 
portly  pocket-books  of  the  slaves  of  the  ring. 
While  he  foresaw  that  it  would  be  difficult  for 
him  to  bring  the  year  around  on  his  salary, 
there  was  Potiphar  of  New  Sodom  taking  in  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  for  "  putting  through " 

(i  06) 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  IO/ 

a  single  bill.  While  his  brilliant  Olympra  was 
sitting  solitary  and  sorrowful  in  her  two  dingy 
rooms,  plain  Mrs.  Job  Poor,  the  wife  of  a  mem 
ber  who  supported  the  iron  interest,  kept  open 
house  in  a  freestone  block,  and  rolled  in  her 
carriage.  It  seemed  to  him  at  times  that,  if 
there  was  a  city  on  earth  where  integrity  got  all 
the  kicks,  and  knavery  all  the  half-pence,  that 
city  was  the  capital  of  this  model  Republic. 

Nevertheless,  he  held  fast  by  his  righteousness 
and  remained  worthy  of  his  reputation.  Give 
a  dog  a  bad  name  and  he  will  deserve  it,  says 
one  of  the  wisest  of  proverbs.  It  is  equally  true 
that  if  you  give  a  dog  a  good  name,  he  will  strive 
to  deserve  that.  In  these  days,  when  temptation 
sought  to  bow  Vane  into  the  dirt,  it  was  a  greatly 
supporting  circumstance  to  him  that  he  had  re 
ceived  the  title  of  Honest.  Now  and  then  he 
was  cheered  and  strengthened  by  seeing  himself 
eulogized  in  the  newspapers  under  this  Catonian 
epithet.  Occasionally,  too,  the  organ  of  a  ring 
would  boast  (falsely)  that  honest  John  Vane  had 


IO8  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

decided  to  vote  for  its  particular  swindle, — a  fact 
which  showed  that  the  name  had  become  a  syno- 
nyme  for  respectability  and  was  reckoned  able  to 
carry  weight.  He  was  a  better  man  for  this  hon 
orable  "handle";  it  had  the  elevating  influence 
of  a  commission  as  "an  officer  and  a  gentleman"; 
it  inspired  him  to  exemplify  the  motto,  Noblesse 
oblige.  In  spite  of  recurring  enticements,  he 
struggled  on  through  the  session,  without  letting 
his  hands  be  soiled  by  the  first  dirty  dollar. 

In  the  meantime,  his  dear  Olympia  had  been  a 
greater  trial  and  stumbling  block  to  him  than  the 
lobby.  Not  that  she  consciously  meant  to  trip 
up  his  integrity  ;  on  the  contrary,  she  hardly  gave 
a  serious  thought  to  it.  Her  desire  was  that 
her  husband  should  take  the  political  leadership 
which  belonged  to  him,  and,  what  was  of  course 
much  more  important,  should  give  her  the  fash 
ionable  eminence  which  belonged  to  her.  She 
had  early  discovered,  to  her  amazement  and  disap 
pointment  and  vexation,  that  a  Congressman  was 
not  necessarily  a  social  magnate  in  Washington. 


IIOXKST   J'OIIN    VANE.  IOQ 

If  he  was  rich  or  potent,  he  was  reverenced  ;  if 
he  was  poor  and  uninfluential,  he  was  neglected : 
his  mere  office  had  little  to  do  with  the  matter. 
There  were  members  whom  the  legislative  world 
and  the  stylish  world  did  not  make  obeisance  to  ; 
and  of  these  members,  her  John,  whom  she  had 
partly  selected  because  of  his  supposed  great 
ness,  was  one.  She  soon  found  that  the  wives  of 
Cabinet  secretaries  and  of  senators  and  of  the 
chiefs  of  the  great  committees  regarded  "her  as 
their  inferior.  Many  of  them  did  not  ask  her  to 
their  receptions,  and  only  returned  her  calls  by 
sending  cards.  Spurred  by  her  eager  desire  to 
commune  with  the  ultra  genteel,  she  committed 
the  imprudence  of  attending  one  senatorial  party 
without  an  invitation,  and  was  treated  with  such 
undisguised  hauteur  by  the  hostess  that  she  went 
bedridden  with  mortification  for  three  days. 

Even  her  beauty,  which  had  secured  her  so 
many  university  beaux  in  Slowburgh,  seemed 
to  have  no  charm  here.  Few  noted  gentlemen 
called  on  her,  and  not  many  of  these  called  twice. 


IIO  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

Whenever  by  good  luck  she  got  to  a  reception, 
there  was  no  swarming  of  fascinated  male  crea 
tures  about  her,  and  she  was  free  to  pass  the 
entire  evening  on  the  arm  of  her  husband.  She 
had  anticipated  romantic  attentions  from  foreign 
secretaries,  and  perhaps  ambassadors,;  but  at  the 
end  of  the  session  she  did  not  know  a  single 
member  of  any  one  of  the  diplomatic  corps  ;  the 
only  alien  individuals  who  came  with  music  to 
her  windows  were  monkeys  and  their  masters. 
For  a  time  this  neglect  was  a  puzzle  to  her,  and 
personally  a  most  humiliating  one.  Her  beauty 
and  graces  were  so  obviously  ineffective  that  she 
began  to  doubt  whether  she  possessed  beauty  or 
grace,  and  to  feel  in  consequence  that  she  was  of 
no  worth,  and  even  contemptible. 

Eventually,  however,  she  obtained  light  on  this 
subject  ;  she  perceived  that  her  husband  was 
right  in  affirming  that  everybody  in  Washington 
"had  an  axe  to  grind  "  ;  the  natural  result  being, 
that  gentlemen  would  not  spend  their  time  in 
paying  court  to  ladies  whose  male  relatives  had 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  Ill 

no  favors  to  confer.  At  first  it  was  a  dismaying 
discovery,  and  she  very  nearly  wept  with  vexation 
over  it,  and  tried  to  despise  the  world  for  its  sor 
did  selfishness.  But  before  long,  moved  by  her 
habitual  reverence  for  society,  she  drifted  into  a 
disposition  to  take  it  as  she  found  it,  and  would 
fain  have  won  its  homage  by  a  show  of  that 
wealth  and  power  which  it  demanded.  The  first 
step  to  this  end,  of  course,  was  to  get  out  of  her 
commonplace  lodgings  and  ascend  to  a  grander 
style  of  living. 

"  O,  I  do  hate  these  dirty,  poverty-stricken 
barracks  ! "  she  moaned,  more  bitterly  than  ever. 
"  I  see  plainly  that  we  shall  never  be  anybody  in 
Washington  as  long  as  we  pen  ourselves  up  in 
two  little  vile  rooms.  You  ought  to  take  a  house, 
John,  and  give  receptions  and  dinners,  for  the 
sake  of  your  own  career.  You  would  get  a  great 
deal  more  influence  that  way  than  by  fussing 
over  papers  in  committees  and  making  speeches." 

Then  followed  the  old,  stale  discussion  over 
the  expense  of  such  a  route  to  glory,  the  husband 


112  HONEST  JOHN   VANE. 

ending  with  his  usual  meek  but  firm  declaration 
that  he  dared  not  risk  it.  Thereupon  Olympia 
cried  harassingly  for  an  hour  or  more,  and  sulked 
in  silence  for  a  day  or  two.  It  seemed  as  if 
some  alien  and  naughty  soul  had  migrated  into 
her  since  the  engaged  days  when  she  rayed  forth 
graciousness  and  amiability.  The  broad  fact  is 
that,  so  far  as  the  masculine  outsider  can  dis 
cover,  most  girls  have  no  character  until  mar 
riage.  Then  for  the  first  time  they  enter  openly 
upon  the  struggle  for  life,  and  then  the  strong 
traits  which  have  hitherto  remained  invisible 
come  out  boldly,  like  certain  chemical  inks  when 
exposed  to  the  fire. 

The  result  of  this  severest  of  Olympia's  many 
sulkings  was  a  compromise.  John  Vane  held  on 
in 'his  frugal  or  semi-frugal  lodgings,  but  he  allow 
ed  his  wife  to  give  frequent  dinners,  and  also 
evenings  with  ice-cream.  But  such  a  lame,  halt, 
and  beggarly  lot  as  appeared  at  these  cheap,  cold- 
water  festivities  !  It  seemed  as  if  the  host  must 
have  gone  out  deliberately  into  the  highways  and 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  113 

hedges  of  political  life  and  forced  them  to  come 
in.  There  were  Congressmen  who  were  just  like 
John  himself, — mere  tyros  and  nobodies  in  the 
great  world  of  statesmanship,  members  of  the  lit 
tle  committees  or  of  no  committee  at  all.  There 
were  members  from  carpetbagdom  who  had  not 
yet  secured  their  seats,  and  delegates  from  the 
territories  who  looked  as  though  they  might  repre 
sent  the  Digger  Indians.  Occasionally  there  was 
a  sharp  wire-puller  or  a  sturdy  log-roller  from 
Slowburgh,  and  more  rarely  a  respectable  citizen 
of  that  place,  who  had  come  on  to  stare  around 
Washington.  One  evening  Olympia  was  nearly 
driven  into  hysterics  of  mortification  by  discover 
ing  that  her  husband  had  brought  in  a  Mormon. 
She  treated  the  venerable  representative  from 
Utah  as  she  had  herself  been  treated  at  Sena 
tor  Knickerbocker's,  and  subsequently  informed 
Honest  Jx)hn  several  dozen  times  that  he  had 
ruined  their  position  in  .society. 

"  I  thought  the  old  fellow  would  be  a  curiosity 
and  amuse  you,"  pleaded  the  husband.  "  You 
are  always  saying  you  want  amusement." 


114  HONEST   JOHN   VANE. 

"Not  that  kind,"  tossed  Olympia,  utterly  out 
of  patience  with  his  stupidity,  and  thinking  that 
by  this  time  he  ought  to  have  comprehended  her 
better.  "  Low  people  may  amuse  you,  and  I 
know  they  do.  It  is  really  one  of  the  great 
faults  of  your  character,  John.  But  to  me  they 
are  simply  strange  and  'odious  bores.  Can't  you 
understand,  once  for  all,  that  I  want  such  amuse 
ments  as  other  ladies  want, — good  society  and 
genteel  surroundings  and — and  nice  things  ?" 

"  O,  yes ;  and  you  want  to  dine  with  the  British 
Ambassador,  and  ride  in  a  coach  with  liveries," 
grumbled  John,  restive  under  this  pestering,  be 
cause  he  was  yet  sore  with  preceding  ones. 

"Well,  what  woman  in  Washington  doesn't?" 
retorted  Olympia,  justifying  herself  in  her  own 
eyes  with  lamentable  facility. 

"  I  suppose  you  don't  think  there's  anything 
fine  in  having  an  honest  man  who  does  his  duty 
and  nothing  but  his  duty,"  groaned  Vane,  refer 
ring  with  pardonable  pride  to  himself,  but  fretting 
under  the  knowledge  that  his  wife  did  not  share 
that  pride. 


HONEST  JOHN  YAM:.  115 

"  O,  there  are  so  many  honest  people,"  sniffed 
Olympia,  eager  to  "  take  him  down." — "  They  are 
as  common  as  chips." 

"  Not  in  Washington,"  returned  this  unappre 
ciated  Aristides,  with  a  bitterness  which  was 
only  in  part  patriotic. 

Such  little  tiffs  as  this,  I  regret  to  avow,  soon 
became  frequent.  Olympia,  having  discovered 
that  potentiality  in  politics  was  necessary  as  a 
basis  for  social  eminence,  began  to  interest  her 
self  disagreeably  in  her  husband's  Congressional 
doings,  and  to  rub  peppery  remarks  into  him  con 
cerning  his  obligation  to  be  eloquent,  able,  man 
aging,  and,  in  short,  successful.  She  informed 
herself  as  to  what  committees  were  the  important 
ones,  and  demanded  of  him  why  he  was  not  on 
any  of  them. 

"  Because  I  am  a  young  member,  I  suppose," 
answered  John,  a  little  sulkily  ;  for  the  fact  in 
itself  was  an  irritating  one,  let  alone  being  "talk 
ed  to  "  about  it. 

"  But  here  you  are  on  the  Committee  for  Revo- 


Il6  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

lutionary  Pensions,"  persisted  the  ambitious  lady/ 
"  It  is  almost  an  insult.  There  are  only  three  or 
four  Revolutionary  pensioners  left.  Of  course 
there  is  nothing  to  do." 

"  Well,  we  do  nothing,"  granted  John,  ungra 
ciously.  "  Somebody  must  do  it." 

"  You  ought  to  try  to  get  on  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means,  Mrs.  Bullion  says,"  continued 
Olympia.  "That  is  the  great  committee,  she 
says.  Why  don't  you  ? " 

"Why  don't  I  try  to  be  President?"  exclaimed 
Vane.  "  I  am  trying,  I  am  doing  what  work 
comes  in  my  way  as  thoroughly  and  honestly  as 
I  can.  If  I  stay  here  long  enough,  I  suppose  I 
shall  get  higher,"  continued  the  poor  catechised 
man,  who  really  had  in  him  some  industry,  perse 
verance,  and  common  sense, — materials  of  char 
acter  which  might  in  time  be  worked  up  into  a 
fair  lawgiver. 

"  Why  don't  you  push  your  bill  about  that — 
that  privilege  ? "  was  the  next  question  of  this 
stateswoman.  "That  would  make  a  sensation." 


HONMST   JOHN    VANE. 

*  "  They  smothered  it  in  committee,"  confessed 
the  husband.  "  What  could  I  do  after  that  ? " 

"  There  !  now  you  see  !  "  exclaimed  Olympia. 
"  You  see  the  need  of  being  on  the  leading  com 
mittees.  If  you  had  been  a  member  of  that 
committee,  you  could  have  stopped  their  smother 
ing  it." 

"  No,  I  could  n't,"  contradicted  John,  naturally 
indignant  at  being  blamed  for  everything,  both 
what  he  did  and  what  others  did.  "  If  I  had 
been  on  it,  I  should  have  been  a  minority  of  one, 
and  the  bill  would  have  been  smashed  all  the 
same.  The  fact  is,  that  Congressmen  in  general 
are  determined  to  hold  on  to  the  franking  privi- 
lege." 

"Didn't  I  tell  you?"  cried  Olympia,  remem 
bering  that  she  had  once  counselled  him  not  to 
urge  unpopular  measures, — "  did  n't  I  tell  you  so 
before  we  were  engaged,  and  ever  so  many  times 
since  ?  I  told  you  to  give  up  that  old  thing  and 
plan  something  that  could  pass.  O,  I  wish  /  was 
a  man ! " 


Il8  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

Remembering  that  if  she  had  been  one,  he 
should  not  have  fallen  in  love  with  her,  Vane  was 
tempted  to  reply,  "I  second  the  motion."  But 
he  restrained  himself,  for  he  had  a  magnanimous 
streak  in  him,  and  he  was  really  very  fond  of  his 
wife. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

IN  these  days,  Olympia  was  both  sore  and 
prickly  with  a  consciousness  of  her  husband's 
incapacity ;  she  was  as  uncomfortable  and  as 
discomforting  as  a  porcupine  might  be  whose 
quills  should  be  sharp  at  both  ends. 

She  was  always  comparing  him  disparagingly 
with  somebody, — with  that  well-descended  gentle 
man  of  the  old  school,  Senator  Knickerbocker ; 
or  that  opulent  gentleman  of  a  new  school,  Sena 
tor  Ironman  ;  with  the  Speaker  and  the  chair 
man  of  the  Finance  Committee,  and  that  elegant 
Potiphar  who  had  taken  the  hundred  thousand 
dollar  fee  ;  with  the  noted  orators  who  had  the 
ear  of  the  House,  such  as  General  Bourn  and 
General  Splurge. 

She  still  liked  John — in  lonely  moments ;  when 
they  were  by  themselves  of  an  evening,  she  often 
clung  to  him  with  a  sense  that  it  was  sweet  to 
6  (119) 


I2O  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

be  loved  and  protected  ;  but  all  clay  she  wished 
that  he  were  more  respected  than  he  was,  and 
greater  than  he  could  be.  At  times  she  had  an 
idea,  or  perhaps,  I  should  say  a  feeling,  that  he 
had  palmed  himself  off  on  her  by  false  pretences. 
Had  he  not  married  her  in  the  guise  of  a  politi 
cal  giant,  and  was  he  not  an  indisputable  political 
dwarf  ?  Other  men  made  great  speeches  which 
stormed  the  admiration  of  Washington,  or  "  en 
gineered  something  through  Congress "  which 
had  the  effect  of  putting  their  wives  into  free 
stone  mansions.  Not  so  with  her  husband  ;  he 
was  a  nobody,  politically,  socially,  and  financially; 
and  it  was  all  his  fault,  too,  for  she  wanted  it 
different. 

But,  at  last,  and  as  if  by  a  mere  freak  of 
fortune,  a  beam  of  prosperity  lighted  her  path. 
Senator  Ironman,  who  was  worth  two  millions  at 
least,  encountered  her  by  chance  at  a  reception, 
paid  her  some  flattering  attentions,  called  upon 
her  a  few  days  later,  and  cajoled  his  wife  into 
calling.  Glad  and  proud  indeed  was  Olympia 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  '121 

over  the  acquisition  of  this  patrician  intimacy, 
the  pass  to  all  the  selectest  dress  circles  and 
most  exclusive  private  boxes  of  that  complex 
theatre,  the  social  life  of  Washington.  Finally 
her  beauty  had  availed  her  somewhat ;  it  had 
brought  her  in  an  hour  more  that  was  of  value 
in  her  eyes  than  she  had  derived  in  many  months 
from  her  husband's  public  services  and  reputable 
name  ;  and,  as  beauty  triumphant  will  do,  it 
bloomed  out  with  increased  splendor. 

John  Vane  thought  that  he  had  never  seen  his 
wife  so  handsome  as  she  was  on  the  evening  in 
which  he  took  her  to  Ironman's  great  party,  the 
grandest  crush  of  the  season.  It  was  even  very 
delightful  to  the  honest,  unsuspecting  soul  to 
note  how  the  rich  and  arrogant  senator  evidently 
admired  her,  and  how  much  he  walked  and 
waltzed  with  her.  And,  if  Mr.  Vane  liked  it 
well,  you  may  be  sure  that  Mrs.  Vane  liked  it 
better.  She  was  throbbingly  happy,  whether  on 
the  great  man's  arm  in  the  promenade,  or  on  his 
shoulder  in  the  dance.  The  deep  flush  of  her 


122  HONEST  JOHN   VANE. 

brunette  cheeks  and  the  liquid  sparkle  of  her 
dark  eyes  revealed  a  stronger  agitation  than  had 
possessed  her  for  many  a  day.  People  stared  at 
her  a  good  deal ;  they  called  her  "  a  stunner," 
and  thought  her  a  little  venturesome  ;  various 
gentlemen,  who  knew  Ironman  well,  exchanged 
queer  glances  ;  certain  ladies,  who  we-re  equally 
informed,  gazed  sidelong  at  Mrs.  Ironman.  None 
of  these  disquieting  circumstances,  however,  were 
visible  to  our  two  innocents  from  Puritanic  Slow- 
burgh.  They  passed  an  entirely  delightful  even 
ing,  .  and  then  walked  economically  but  content 
edly  home,  telling  each  other  how  nice  it  had  ail 
been. 

Thenceforward  Mrs.  Vane  led  a  cheerier  life  of 
it.  She  was  invited  everywhere,  and  Mr.  Iron 
man  was  always  delightfully  attentive,  and  conse 
quently  other  people  paid  court.  She  no  longer 
found  the  Washington  receptions  unsocial,  heart 
less,  and  stupid, — mere  elbowings  of  selfish  peo 
ple  who  either  did  not  know  each  other,  or  only 
wanted  to  use  each  other, — the  dreariest  social 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  123 

gatherings  perhaps  that  ever  gas-light  shone  upon. 
The  favor  of  the  rich  senator  and  of  his  adhe 
rents  and  parasites  irradiated  these  doleful  cau- 
cusses  to  her  eyes  with  interest  and  gayety. 
Moreover,  Mr.  Ironman  did  not  restrict  his  cour 
tesies  to  occasions  of  festivity.  His  carriage 
(not  his  wife's,  but  his  own  special  turnout)  was 
frequently  seen  at  Vane's  humble  door.  He  took 
Olympia  in  it  all  over  the  surrounding  landscapes, 
to  the  reservoir  hill  back  of  Georgetown,  to  the 
soldiers'  cemetery  at  Arlington,  and  to  other 
similarly  inspiring  eminences  whence  one  can  see 
a  great  ways,  though  not  into  the  future.  Fur 
thermore  he  gallanted  her  to  the  Capitol,  to  the 
Smithsonian,  to  the  theatre,  and  to  concerts. 
Likewise  he  sent  her  bouquets,  and  after  a  time 
finer  presents.  In  fact,  -his  assiduity  gradually 
verged  into  such  an  appearance  of  courtship  that 
there  would  have  been  talk  about  it,  if  Washing 
ton  society  had  not  been  charitable  even  beyond 
Christianity  in  its  judgments,  and  also  absorb 
ingly  intent  upon  affairs  which  were  more  profit 
able  than  gossip. 


124  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

It  was,  however,  a  perilous  business  for  Olym- 
pia,  this  daily  communion  with  Ironman.  The 
senator  was  one  of  those  infrequent  and  yet  dis 
coverable  statesmen  who  value  distinction  among 
men  mainly  because  it  helps  them  to  captivate 
women.  Although  he  was,  to  speak  with  consid 
erate  vagueness,  not  under  forty,  he  had  that 
restless  passion  for  "conquests"  which  we  scarcely 
pardon  in  the  novice  of  twenty,  eager  to  secure 
acknowledgments  of  the  puissance  of  his  individu 
ality,  or,  in  other  words,  to  show  that  he  is  "irre 
sistible."  •  There  was  not  a  session  during  which 
his  proud,  calm,  mature  Juno  of  a  wife  did  not 
have  occasion  to  wonder  what  sort  of  common 
mortal  her  Jove  would  run  after  next.  This 
patient  or  indifferent  lady,  by  the  way,  had  taken 
very  kindly  to  Olympia,  considering  her  a  young 
person  whom  it  would  be  respectable  for  Iron 
man  to  drive  about  with,  and  who  would  keep  him 
from  making  himself  ridiculous  by  sending  bou 
quets  to  treasury  girls. 

But  absurd  as  the  senator  was  in  the  eyes  of 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  125 

his  spouse,  he  could  not  seem  absurd  to  Mrs. 
Vane,  at  least  not  immediately.  His  very  rage 
for  gallantry  made  him  attractive  to  a  woman  who 
knew  by  experience  the  sweetness  of  flirtation, 
and  who,  for  months  past,  had  been  confined  to 
very  short  browsings  of  it.  As  for  his  shining 
state  on  the  alps  of  society,  and  the  entirely  sol 
vent,  redeemable,  coinable  wreaths  and  vapors  of 
opulence  which  hung  about  him,  not  only  were 
they  circumstances  such  as  she  had  always  looked 
up  to  with  admiration,  but  they  seemed  more  daz 
zling  than  ever,  viewed  through  the  atmosphere 
of  Washington.  It  is  true  that  this  wealth  was 
mainly  the  result  of  special  enactments,  not  bene 
ficial  to  the  masses  ;  that  the  rich  statesman  had 
enormously  increased  his  riches  by  operations 
which  he  had  himself  helped  to  legalize  ;  and  that 
he  had  sometimes  voted  for  a  brother  patriot's 
pet  measure  in  consideration  of  a  similar  service 
rendered  to  his  own.  But  Olympia  did  not  con 
cede  much  respect  to  political  disinterestedness  ; 
she  had  had  a  surfeit  of  that  poorly  paying  virtue 


126  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

in  her  own  cheap  and  dingy  home.  Moreover, 
Ironman  had  always  been  so  prosperous  that  he 
could  afford  to  despise  the  direct  lucre  of  the 
lobby,  and  thus  had  deserved,  in  the  opinion  of  a 
closely  sheared,  patient  public,  the  repute  of  being 
a  singularly  upright  lawgiver. 

Nor  was  this  the  end  of  his  enchantments  ;  he 
possessed  talismans  of  a  more  personal  nature. 
He  was  not  so  plain  a  man  but  that,  by  dint  of 
careful  grooming  and  fine  caparisons,  he  could 
pass  for  handsome.  True,  he  was  too  lean,  too 
hollow  in  the  chest,  too  narrow  in  the  shoulders, 
and  too  knobby  in  the  arms  and  legs,  to  inspire 
the  most  realistic  sculptor  with  a  desire  to  per 
petuate  his  model  in  marble,  except  for  the  bare 
emoluments  of  the  job.  But  like  many  tall  and 
long-limbed  men,  he  was  graceful  when  under 
way,  and  had  a  specially  good  gait  in  dancing. 
As  for  the  shiny  circle  on  the  top  of  his  blonde 
head,  it,  at  first  sight,  appeared  a  decided  disad 
vantage.  To  conceal  it  he  bowed  rarely  and  at  a 
very  obtuse  angle,  which  caused  unobservant  and 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  I2/ 

unreflecting  people  to  pronounce  him  haughty,  if 
not  discourteous.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  led 
him  to  carry  himself  with  erectness,  and  thus 
gave  him  a  port  which  was  generally  admitted  to 
be  distingue.  His  long,  aquiline,  pinkish  face 
had  an  expression  akin  to  the  immortal  perplexity 
of  Lord  Dundreary,  but  for  that  very  reason, 
perhaps,  was.  considered  patrician  by  numerous 
Washington  ladies.  On  the  whole,  he  was  a  cava 
lier  whose  proffered  arm  might  well  thrill  an  am 
bitious  woman's  heart  with  pride. 

Such  was  the  partially  respectable  statesman 
and  almost  entirely  ludicrous  man  who  lifted  the 
Vanes  into  the  highest  circles  of  the  society  of 
our  capital.  As  we  have  said,  his  favor  was  a 
perilous  boon  to  Olympia,  considering  her  breed 
ing  and  aspirations.  Even  as  a  girl,  even  while 
living  thriftily  in  staid  Slowburgh,  she  had  been 
eager  after  pomps  and  prodigalities.  In  Wash 
ington,  she  had  become  still  more  demoralized,  if 
we  may  apply  that  ugly  epithet  to  a  longing  for 
finery  and  admiration, — a  longing  so  common 


128  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

among  our  "  guardian  angels."  The  splendors  of 
women  whose  husbands  had  got  fortunes  by  en 
gineering  schemes  through  Congress  had  com 
pletely  dazzled  her  imagination  and  made  her  mad 
with  envy. 

It  would  seem  that  special  legislation  and  its 
attendant  snares  of  bribery  were  set  for  the  down 
fall,  not  only  of  our  Federal  heads  in  Congress, 
but  also  of  their  Eves. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

BY  good  fortune  the  intimacy  between  Senator 
Ironman  and  Qlympia  had  budded  so  late  in 
the  session  that  it  did  not  have  time  to  ripen  into 
such  bloom  as  would  irresistibly  attract  the  eye  of 
scandal. 

John  Vane  went  home  quite  content  with  his 
wife,  and  she  rather  more  than  content  with  her 
self.  A  diversified  existence — Delectable  Moun 
tains  mingled  with  Vales  of  Tears— awaited  their 
feet  in  Slowburgh.  It  was  delightful  to  our  mem 
ber  to  have  his  praises  sung  night  and  morning 
by  the  enamoured  troubadours  of  the  party  jour 
nals,  and  to  receive  salaams,  which  were  obviously 
tokens  of  respect  for  his  proved  uprightness,  from 
men  of  acknowledged  position  and  character,, — 
men  who  had  not  previously  deigned  to  know 
him,  or  had  blandly  kept  him  at  a  distance.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  was  disagreeable  to  listen  to  the 

(129) 


I3O  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

grumblings  of  unrewarded  wirepullers  of  low  de 
gree,  and  to  feel  obliged  to  pacify  them  by  dint  of 
promises,  apologies,  and  wheedlings,  which  now 
for  the  first  time  seemed  to  him  demeaning. 

As  for  Olympia,  she  could  at  last  enjoy  a  con 
sciousness  of  peculiar  distinction  ;  for,  whereas 
in  Washington  she  had  been  only  one  of  many 
Congresswomen,  she  was  the  sole  and  solitary  one 
extant  in  Slowburgh, — a  fact  which  gave  her  pre 
eminence  among  her  acquaintance.  Unfortu 
nately,  it  could  not  exalt  her  to  the  social  zenith 
of  Saltonstall  Avenue,  where  political  notoriety 
'had  long  been  considered  a  disqualification  rather 
than  an  introduction,  owing  to  its  frequent  con 
nection  writh  such  low  "jobbers"  as  Mr.  James 
Bummer.  Furthermore  there  was  a  scant  supply 
in  the  family  locker  of  money.  During  Vane's 
absence  the  refrigerator  business  had  not  done 
well ;  a  costly  patent  in  the  same  had  proved  un- 
remunerative ;  the  dividends  were  pitifully  meagre. 
All  the  summer  was  spent  in  economizing  at  the 
maternal  boarding-house  or  at  a  cheap  resort  by 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  13 l 

the  seaside.  It  was  impossible  to  meet  the  Iron- 
mans  at  Saratoga,  as  Olympia  had  confidently 
agreed  to  do.  You  can  imagine  her  general  dis 
content  and  how  frequently  her  husband  suffered 
therefrom,  and  what  a  poorish  season  they  had 
of  it.  But  the  summer  and  fall  wore  away  at 
last,  and  they  returned  to  Washington  with  a  fair 
sense  of  satisfaction,  though  indifferently  furn 
ished  in  pocket. 

"  We  must  live  mighty  close  this  winter,"  said 
Vane  to  his  wife,  hoping  she  would  take  it  well. 
"  Yes,  we  must  keep  house,"  replied  Olympia, 
with  cheerful  firmness.  "  This  lodging  and  board 
ing  is  awfully  expensive,  and  you  get  nothing  for 
your  money, — a  horrid  table  and  vile  furniture. 
It  is  just  being  swindled." 

"  I  know  it  is  being  swindled,"  groaned  John, 
gazing  over  the  edge  of  the  frying-pan  into  the 
fire.  "  But  it  is  cheaper  than  housekeeping ; 
everybody  says  so.  We  can't  afford  a  house  any 
more  than  we  can  afford  a  pyramid." 

"  Yes,  we  can,"  insisted  Olympia.     And  there- 


13?  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

upon  she  skipped  lightly  through  a  calculation  of 
the  cost  of  housekeeping :  the  rent  would  be  so 
much,  the  food  not  much  more,  the  service  about 
half  as  much  ;  the  result  a  clear  saving  of  many 
dollars  a  month. 

It  looked  reasonable,  when  held  up  in  that  off 
hand  way  ;  it  seemed  as  if  economy  might  evolve 
such  a  consummation. 

"  But  how  about  furniture,  carpets,  and  so  on  ? " 
reflected  Vane. 

"Why,  take  a  furnished  house,  you  muddled 
creature." 

"Ah!  but  that  doubles  the  rent,  or  comes  closer 
to  trebling  it." 

But  still  Olympia  stuck  to  her  project  of  sav 
ing  ;  and  at  last  (oh,  the  perseverance  of  wives  !) 
she  conquered.  A  house  was  taken,  at  first  only 
for  a  month,  for  the  rent  scared  Vane,  and  he 
would  not  sign  a  longer  lease. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  you  are  just  trying  to 
clean  me  out,"  was  his  rather  coarse  response 
when  Mrs.  Vane  pleaded  for  tenure  by  the  ses- 


HONEST   JOHN    VAXK.  133 

sion.  "  If  we  were  only  married  for  the  seasbn, 
I  could  understand  it.  Can't  you  remember  that 
whert  my  pocket  is  drained"  (dreaned,  he  pro 
nounces  it)  "yours  is  empty  too?" 

"And  it  seems  to  me  that  you  are  just  trying 
to  make  me  miserable,"  was  Olympia's  illogical 
but  telling  retort.  "  I  don't  want  to  be  lectured, 
sir,  as  if  I  were  in  short  dresses." 

Nor  was  she  singularly  unreasonable.  At  that 
very  time  and  perhaps  in  that  very  moment  many 
other  wives  of  Congressmen  were  inciting  their 
husbands  to  spend  more  than  their  salaries.  She 
had  got  into  a  lofty  position,  and  she  wanted  to 
live  conformably  to  it.  That  she  should  thus  live 
seemed  so  rational  to  her,  that  she  could  not  see 
how  her  husband  could  sanely  object  to  it.  As 
for  the  lack  of  sufficient  income  for  the  purpose, 
that  surely  was  his  lookout,  and  not  hers.  I  ask  i 
triumphantly  how  many  feminine  Intellects  can  / 
discover  a  flaw  in  this  logic  ? 

Still,  John  showed  no  relenting  ;  he  had  got  his 
back  up,  as  the  tom-cats  put  it  to  each  other ;  he 


134  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

even  looked  as  though  he  did  not  care  if  she  were 
miserable.  So  Olympia  resorted  to  argument 
once  more,  as  feeble  humanity  does  when  it  finds. 
grumbling  useless.  She  recited  the  cases  of  half 
a  dozen  other  members  who  had  nothing  but 
their  salaries,  yet  took  houses  by  the  session ;  the 
inference  being  that  her  member  could  do  like 
wise,  and  would  if  he  were  not  a  curmudgeon. 

"  Yes,  and  every  one  of  them  is  head  over  heels 
in  debt,  or  drawing  bribes  from  every  ring  in  the 
lobby,"  alleged  Vane.  "  Do  you  suppose  that 
being  ruined  in  a  crowd  makes  it  any  finer  ?  Do 
you  suppose  that  the  drove  of  porkers  who  rushed 
down  steep  places  into  the  sea  found  drowning 
any  more  comfortable  because  there  were  ten 
thousand  of  them?" 

"  Porkers !  I  should  like  to  know  whom  you  ap 
ply  that  name  to,"  retorted  Olympia,  reddening 
with  anger.  "I  am  your  wife,  sir,  and  a  born 
lady." 

"  I  was  speaking  of  Congress,"  answered  Vane, 
with  a  smile,  for  he  had  grown  tough  under  peck  - 


HONEST  JOHN   VANE.  135 

ing.  "  Well,  I  see  that  there  is  no  use  in  arguing 
this  matter.  I  have  signed  the  lease  for  one 
month,  and  I  shall  not  change  it." 

So,  on  this  occasion  Olympia  had  to  give  in, 
although  it  almost  cost  her  her  life,  to  use  a  com 
mon  exaggeration.  But  if  a  wife  wants  to  punish 
her  husband  for  his  tyrannies,  there  are  always 
ways  enough  to  do  it,  thank  gracious.  Mrs.  Vane 
signalized  her  first  week  of  Housekeeping  by 
giving  a  costly  dinner,  inviting  Senator  Ironman 
thereto,  and  flirting  with  him  so  openly  that 
hencefonvard  John  carried  a  fresh  prickle  in  his 
hymeneal  crown  of  roses.  Other  extravagances 
followed,  not  all  of  them  indeed  meant  as  casti- 
gations,  for  Olympia  had  a  curious  felicity  at 
spending  money,  and  did  it  literally  without  think 
ing.  Instead  of  "  saving  on  the  table,"  as  she 
had  promised  to  do  and  really  meant  to  do,  she 
so  managed  matters  as  to  make  the  family  nourish 
ment  a  synonyme  in  Vane's  mind  for  being  eaten 
out  of  house  and  home.  Her  cook  did  the  mar 
keting  ;  for  how  could  a  born  lady  do  it  ?  And 


1 36  HONEST  JOHN   VANE. 

this  cook  was  a  Washington  colored  sister, — a 
fact  which  speaks  volumes  to  naturalists  acquainted 
with  that  primitive  development  of  "help," — a 
fact  which  suggests  waste,  mousing  relations,  a 
hungry  host  of  visitors  in  the  kitchen,  and  per 
haps  pilfering.  Vane  asserted  that,  instead  of 
feeding  four  people,  as  he  had  expected  to  do,  he 
fed  nearer  fourteen.  Mrs.  Vane  replied,  some 
times  tearfully  and  sometimes  pettishly,  that  no 
mortal  could  rule  "  those  creatures,"  and  that  no 
lady  ought  to  be  expected  to  do  it. 

Two  months,  however,  had  passed  away  before 
this  state  of  things  became  obvious  ;  the  house 
being  taken  for  a  second  month  because  "it 
seemed  absurd  to  break  up  in  such  a  hurry." 
Then,  all  of  a  sudden,  our  member  found  himself 
unable  to  pay  his  honest  debts,  or  at  least  a  por 
tion  of  them.  It  was  a  terrible  thing  to  him ; 
never  before  had  he  been  driven  to  send  away  a 
tradesman  uncontent;  and  it  took  all  his  Con- 
gressmanhood  to  keep  him  from  weeping  over  the 
novel  humiliation.  His  distress  was  heightened 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  137 

by  a  daybreak  dialogue  which  he  chanced  to  over 
hear  between  his  milkman  and  his  butcher's 
driver. 

"  Say !  what  kind  o'  folks  is  these  Vanes,  any 
way  ?"  demanded  the  milk-man,  who  was  a  Down- 
Easter  settled  in  the  District. 

"Dunno,"  responded  the  driver,  who  was  a 
colored  man,  and  so  cared  for  nobody  and  noth 
ing. 

"Waal,  they've  been  gettin'  milk  from  me  for 
abeout  nine  weeks,  an'  don't  seem  to  allude  to  no 
keind  o'  peay,"  continued  the  milkman,  with  a 
piteous,  inquiring  accent. 

"  Specs  likely,"  admitted  the  negro,  who  would 
have  thought  strange  of  anybody  offering  to  pay 
for  anything. 

The  unmeant  satire  of  these  remarks  stung 
Vane  like  a  blister.  All  day  he  was  saying  to 
himself  and  of  himself  :  "Don't  seem  to  allude  to 
no  keind  o'  peay.  Specs  likely."  He  could  not 
stand  it ;  he  must  confide  his  troubles  and  ask 
advice  ;  he  must  get  strength,  wisdom,  and  cheer 


138  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

out  of  somebody.  The  person  whom  he  was 
finally  moved  to  open  his  bosom  to  was  not  a 
brother  legislator,  but  a  person  who  was  much 
scoffed  at  in  Congress  as  a  poetical  enthusiast 
and  a  political  idealist,  because  he  was  engaged  in 
a  noble  plan  for  renovating  a  wofully  decayed 
branch  of  the  government.  Mr.  Frank  Cavendish 
had  met  Vane  in  committee-rooms,  and  the  two 
had  been  somewhat  attracted  to  each  other  by 
their  common  unpopularity,  both  being  reckoned 
stumbling-blocks  to  legislation  as  it  is.  To  Cav 
endish  our  member  now  repaired,  saying  to  him 
self  in  a  pathetically  meek  spirit,  that,  if  the  man 
knew  how  to  reform  an  entire  system  of  official 
business,  he  might,  perhaps,  be  able  to  reform  a 
foolish  Congressman. 

"  I  don't  want  a  loan,"  he  explained,  after  he 
had  stated  his  case.  "That  wouldn't  get  me  out 
of  debt ;  it  would  only  change  the  debtor.  Be 
sides,  it  would  n't  stop  the  sinking  process.  What 
I  want  is  to  learn  how  to  live  on  my  salary,  and 
still  keep  a  decent  position  before  the  world.  It 


HONEST  JOHN    VAN  1C.  I  39 

would  n't  be  a  matter  of  much  account  if  it  was 
my  case  alone.  But  there  are  loads  of  us  mem 
bers  in  the  same  fix,  getting  deeper  and  deeper  in 
debt  every  year,  and  seeing  only  one  way  out  of 
it, — special  legislation,  you  know." 

This  last  phrase  he  added  with  a  ready,  com 
monplace  wink  which  was  habitual  with  him,  and  , 
suggestive  of  character.  It  revealed  that,  while 
he  disapproved  of  the  briberies  and  corruptions 
of  the  lobby,  he  did  not  recoil  from  them  with' the 
disgust  of  a  morally  refined  soul,  and  saw  in  them 
as  much  that  was  humorous  as  hideous. 

"And  that  is  sheer  ruin,"  interjected  Cavendish, 
with  the  haste  of  one  who  puts  out  his  hand  to 
save  a  man  from  falling. 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  it  is,"  responded  Vane  ;  remem 
bering  that  if  he  should  take  bribes  and  be  ex 
posed  in  it,  he  would  lose  his  prized  and  useful 
title  of  "  honest." 

"  It  is  moral  ruin  to  Congressmen  and  financial 
ruin  to  the  country,"  continued  Cavendish,  wish 
ing  to  impress  his  lesson  clearly  on  this  evidently 
doughy  nature. 


I4O  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

"You're  right,"  admitted  John,  his  conscience 
vitalized  and  his  intellect  cleared  by  the  remark. 
"  If  things  go  on  ten  years  as  they  are  going  now, 
the  lobby  will  be  the  real  legislative  power  of  the 
land.  Well,  to  come  back  to  my  own  case,  here 
I  am  living  beyond  my  salary,  and  not  very  blam- 
able  for  it  either.  I  am  not  extravagant  in  my 
fancies,"  he  affirmed  positively,  and,  as  we  know, 
with  truth  ;  "  and  my  wife  don't  want  more  than 
other  women  generally  do,"  he  added,  giving  Olym- 
pia  what  credit  he  might,  and  perhaps  more  than 
was  her  due.  "  But  living  here  is  really  dear, — 
you  can't  make  it  otherwise.  I've  tried  it,  and 
you  can't !  I  don't  see  but  one  salvation  for  us. 
Do  you  think  it  would  do  to  make  a  move  to  raise 
our  salaries  ?" 

"Why  not  first  make  a  move  to  lessen  expenses?" 
suggested  Cavendish. 

"  How  ?"  asked  Vane,  thinking  solely  of  giving 
up  housekeeping  and  going  into  very  cheap  lodg 
ings,  and  thinking  at  the  same  time  of  the  stren 
uous  fight  which  Olympia  would  wage  against 
such  a  plan. 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  14! 

"  Congress  is  largely  to  blame  for  the  present 
enormous  cost  of  living,"  continued  Cavendish. 
"  It  devised  and  it  still  keeps  in  force  the  very 
laws  which  diminish  by  one  half  the  purchasing 
power  of  the  dollar.  Congressmen  vote  to  give 
themselves  five  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  then 
vote  to  make  that  sum  equivalent^ to  only  twenty- 
five  hundred.  Of  course  yon  understand  this  mat 
ter,"  he  added,  politely  imputing  to  Vane  more 
political  economy  than  was  in  him.  "But  allow 
me  to  explain  myself,  if  only  to  relieve  my  own 
feelings.  Here  you  legislative  gentlemen  refuse 
to  hasten  the  resumption  of  specie  payments. 
The  consequence  is,  that  you  draw  your  salary  in 
dollars  which  are  worth  only  about  ninety  cents 
apiece.  Next,  and  what  is  much  more  important, 
you  keep  up  a  system  of  taxation  which  benefits 
certain  producers  enormously,  at  an  enormous  ex 
pense  to  the  collective  body  of  consumers,  the 
great  majority  of  your  constituents.  Again,  and 
this  too  is  very  important,  you  lay  these  taxes  less 
on  the  luxuries  of  the  rich  than  on  the  necessaries. 


142  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

of  the  poor.  You  have  made  tea  and  coffee  free, 
they  being  really  luxuries  and  not  needful  to  exist 
ence,  although  our  extravagant  working  classes 
use  them  abundantly.  Meanwhile  you  tax  heav 
ily  all  materials  of  labor  and  all  articles  of  common 
comfort.  There  is  hardly  a  substance  or  a  tool 
which  the  American  uses  in  his  work  but  pays  a 
heavy  duty.  His  coal  and  lumber,  his  food  and 
the  salt  which  cures  it,  his  clothing  and  so  on,  all 
are  taxed.  The  result  is  that  labor  must  get  high 
wages  or  starve.  The  result  to  you  is,  that  your 
apparently  liberal  salaries  are  insufficient  to  sup 
port  a  moderate  style  of  living." 

"  O — I  see — you  are  a  free-trader,"  drawled 
John  Vane,  his  countenance  falling. 

"  No,  I  am  an  advocate  of  a  revenue  tariff ;  of 
a  system  of  taxation  which  bears  mainly  on  peo 
ple  in  easy  circumstances  ;  of  a  system  like  that 
of  England  and  Belgium.  The  entire  public  in 
come  of  those  two  countries  is  paid  by  luxuries." 

"  O,  I  dare  say  you  are  right,"  sighed  our  mem 
ber  ;  "  I  have  n't  looked  into  it  much, — I  ain't  on 


HONEST  JOHN    VAXK.  143 

those  committees,  you  know, — but  I  dare  say  you 
are  right.  However,  it  can't  be  helped."  And 
he  shook  his  law-giving  head  sadly.  "  If  we 
should  so  much  as  whisper  revenue  tariff,  all  the 
monopolists,  all  the  vested  interests,  would  be  after 
us.  You  don't  know,  perhaps,  how  sharp-eyed 
and  prompt  and  powerful  those  fellows  are.  They 
are  always  on  hand  with  their  cash,  and  if  you 
don't  want  that  you  do  want  re-election.  They  are 
as  greedy,  and  I  don't  know  but  they  are  as  strong, 
as  the  relief  bill  and  subsidy  chaps.  It's  a  mean 
thing  to  own  up  to,  but  Congress  daren't  fight 
'em.  This  country,  Mr.  Cavendish,  this  great 
Republic  which  brags  so  of  its  freedom,  is  tyran 
nized  over  by  a  few  thousand  capitalists  and  job 
bers.  No,  sir,  it's  no  sort  of  use ;  we  can't  have 
a  revenue  tariff." 

"  Then  there  is  nothing  for  an  honest  legislator 
to  do  but  to  live  on  the  tough  steaks  and  cold  hom 
iny  of  cheap  boarding-houses,"  observed  Caven 
dish. 

"  That's  the  only  ticket,"  mumbled  Vane  ;  and 
the  two  patriots  parted  in  low  spirits. 
7 


CHAPTER     XIV. 

AS  honest  John  walked  homeward,  eschewing 
the  minute  expense  of  the  street-cars,  he 
swore  that  he  would  live  like  a  pauper,  and  so 
keep  his  integrity. 

But  he  reckoned  without  his  host. —  meaning 
thereby  the  partner  of  his  bosom,  who  was  cer 
tainly  a  host  in  herself,  particularly  when  it  came 
to  crying. 

"  Go  back  to  boarding  !"  tearfully  exclaimed 
Olympia,  who  just  then  had  a  reception  In  view. 
"  Then  why  did  you  commence  housekeeping  ? 
The  idea  of  giving  me  a  house  only  to  take  it 
away  again  !  You  donl  love  me  as  other  men 
love  their  wives.  You  delight  in  plaguing  me." 
And  so  on,  and  over  again,  with  much  sobbing. 

In  a  day  or  two  she  actually  impressed  Vane 
with  a  feeling  that,  in  wishing  to  "take  her  house 
from  her,"  he  was  guilty  of  a  purpose  akin  to 


HoNliST   JOHX    VANE.  145 

robbery,  and,  of  course,  entirely  unworthy  of  a 
just  husband.  He  had  to  concede  that,  from  one 
point  of  view,  Olympia  did  not  demand  overmuch  ; 
even  to  his  business-like  and  arithmetical  imagin 
ation,  five  thousand  dollars  seemed  a  large  income ; 
even  he  could  not  ycS:  believe  it  insufficient  to  cover 
housekeeping.  Partly  because  he  was  deluded  by 
this  ante-tax  idea,  and  partly  because  he  was  a 
compassionate  man  and  loving  husband,  he  defer 
red  the  humble  and  lenten  pilgrimage  through 
boarding-house  deserts  back  to  solvency,  and,  of 
course,  went  more  and  more  laden  with  the  bond 
age  of  debt. 

At  last,  sad  to  relate,  he  began  to  admit  to  him 
self,  like  so  many  other  hardly  bested  men,  that 
"  something  or  other  must  be  done,"  meaning 
something  which  would  bring  money;  no  matter 
how.  One  evening  as  he  sat  alone  in  his  parlor, 
now  staring  in  dull  discontent  at  the  shaky  furn 
iture  for  which  he  paid  such  a  high  rent,  now 
'  recalling  the  fact  that  Olympia  was  away  at  a  re 
ception  with  that  opulently  dazzling  Ironman,  he 


146  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

once  more  thought  over  his  wilderness  of  troubles 
and  tried  to  devise  a  way  out  of  them.  He  was 
harassed,  degraded,  and  enfeebled  by  the  daily 
urgency  of  debt.  His  matrimonial  happiness  had 
been  half  wrecked  by  the  mere  lack  of  filthy  lucre. 
If  he  wanted  to  recover  his  wife's  respect  and 
affection,  he  must  positively  provide  her  with  gra 
cious  surroundings,  and  stop  bullying  her  about 
expenditures.  How  could  he  get  money,  with 
i  honesty,  or,  alas  !  without  it  ? 

While  he  was  puzzling  amid  the  brambles  of 
this  wretched  question,  he  was  surprised  by  a  visit 
from  his  former  friend  and  wire-puller,  Darius 
Dorman.  Vane  and  Dorman  had  not  seen  much 
of  each  other  since  the  former  had  denounced  the 
Great  Subfluvial  Tunnel  as  little  better  than  a 
trick  for  defrauding  the  government  and  the  pub 
lic  of  small  investors.  The  lobbyist  had  judged 
that  it  would  not  be  wise  to  "  keep  at "  Honest 
John,  and  had  expended  his  time,  breath,  and 
funds  on  members  of  a  less  Catonian  type. 

Meanwhile  the  bill  had  prospered  as  bills  do 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  147 

which  "  have  money  in  them."  Although  Vane 
had  voted  against  it,  the  tunnel  had  obtained  a 
charter  from  Congress  and  likewise  a  loan  of  forty 
millions  from  the  United  States  treasury,  the  same 
being  only  a  dollar  a  head  from  every  inhabitant 
of  this  free  country,  including  women,  children, 
negroes,  and  Indians  not  taxed.  Two  or  three 
times  as  many  more  millions  had  come  in  from 
financiers  who  saw  forty  per  cent,  profit  in  an  early 
purchase,  and  from  a  simple  public  which  believed 
that  it  could  safely  follow  the  lead  of  the  wise  men 
of  the  capital.  Furthermore,  the  directors  and 
managers  of  the  Great  Subflttvial  had  contrived 
what  might  be  called  a  Sub-Tunnel  for  their  own 
peculiar  emolument,  which  fulfilled  its  purpose 
admirably.  This  was  a  most  wonderful  invention, 
and  deserves  our  intensest  study.  It  was  a  cor 
poration  inside  of  the  original  corporation.  Its 
ostensible  object  was  the  construction  of  the  Sub- 
fluvial,  but  its  real  object  was  the  division  of  the 
capital  into  profits.  For  instance,  it  built  a  mile 
of  tunnel  at  a  cost  of,  say  ten  thousand  dollars, 


148  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

and  then  delivered  the  same  to  the  outside  com 
pany  for  say  fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  then 
shared  the  difference  of  forty  thousand  dollars 
among  its  own  stockholders.  Of  course  this  was 
a  better  bargain  for  the  inside  company  than  for 
the  outside  one;  but  all  chance  of  quarrelling 
between  the  two  was  evaded  by  a  very  erf ective 
device ;  they  had  the  same  men  for  directors,  or 
the  same  men's  partners. 

O,  it  was  a  beautiful  business  idea, — this  Float 
ing  Credit,  or  Syndicate,  or  whatever  its  inven 
tors  christened  it.  It  reminds  one  of  that  ingen 
ious  machine  called  the  Hen  Persuader,  which 
was  so  constructed  that  when  placed  under  a  hen's 
nest,  it  would  withdraw  every  egg  the  moment  it 
was  laid,  whereupon  biddy  would  infer  that  her 
sensations  had  deceived  her  with  regard  to  the 
fact  of  laying,  and  would  immediately  deposit 
another  egg,  and  so  continue  to  do  until  she  died 
of  exhaustion.  In  some  respects,  also,  this  inter 
nal  corporation  resembled  that  hungry  creature 
known  as  a  tape-worm,  which  devours  a  man's  din- 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  149 

ner  as  fast  as  he  swallows  it,  and  leaves  him  hun 
grier  than  ever. 

Of  course  the  gentlemen  who  held  shares  in 
the  Hen  Persuader  did  a  profitable  business,  and 
filled  their  private  wallets  with  golden  eggs  in 
abundance.  But  still  they  were  not  quite  con 
tent;  the  old  fowl  above  them,  that  is  to  say, 
Uncle  Sam's  eagle,  occasionally  cackled  angrily ; 
and  it  was  extremely  desirable  to  put  a  stop  to  his 
alarming  demand  for  chickens.  Darius  Dorman 
had  an  anxious  look  on  his  crisped  and  smutted 
physiognomy  as  he  seated  himself  opposite  his 
representative. 

"  Vane,  we  must  have  another  lift,  or  let  the 
whole  thing  drop,"  he  said  abruptly. 

"  What !  have  n't  you  bled  the  treasury  enough  ?" 
grumbled  Honest  John,  angrily  contrasting  his 
own  shrunken  porte  monnaic  with  the  plethoric 
pocket-books  and  overrunning  safes  of  the  great 
corporation. 

"We  want  time,"  anwered  Dorman,  really  mean 
ing  thereby  that  he  wanted  an  eternity  of  it. 


I5O  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

"  Here  is  this  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  making 
a  raid  on  us.  He  asks  for  interest  on  his  loan. 
How  in  the  name  of  all  the  witches  of  Salem  does 
he  suppose  the  Subfluvial  can  pay  three  millions 
of  interest  per  year,  in  addition  to  meeting  its 
running  expenses  ?  We  understood  that  the  inter 
est  was  to  wait  until  the  termination  of  the  loan, 
thirty  years  from  now." 

"  Pay  it  out  of  the  principal,"  suggested  Vane 
sulkily.  "  Do  as  other  roads  do." 

"  But  we  want  the  principal  for  dividends.  We 
can't  keep  on  selling  stock,  unless  we  show  a  div 
idend  now  and  then." 

"  Ain't  there  any  profits  ?"  asked  Vane,  with  a 
keen  look.  "  Have  n't  your  managers  and  inside 
passengers  laid  away  enough  to  spare  a  little  for 
profits  ?" 

Dorman  had  such  a  spasm  that  he  fairly  writhed 
in  his  chair.  It  seemed  as  if  every  swindling  dol 
lar  that  he  had  got  out  of  the  Hen  Persuader  were 
that  moment  burning  into  his  already  cicatrized 
cuticle. 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  151 

"  O,  they  will  fall  in  later,"  he  smiled,  recover 
ing  his  self  possession.  "  They  will  come  when 
the  tunnel  is  clean  through,  and  has  had  time  to 
make  travel.  But  until  that  time  arrives  we  must 
have  favor  shown  us.  Give  us  a  lift,  John,  and 
we'll  give  you  one." 

Honest  John  Vane  hesitated,  querying  whether 
he  should  take  one  solitary  step  to  meet  tempta 
tion,  and  see  at  least  what  it  was  like. 

"  Well,"  he  at  last  said,  in  the  surly  tone  of  a  f 
man  who  feels  that  he  is  on  the  verge  of  making 
a  diabolically  bad  bargain, — "well,  what  do  you 
want  now?" 


CHAPTER     XV. 

HE  very,  faint  promise  of  aid  which  seemed 
JL  to  exhale  from  Vane's  question  cheered  up 
Dorman  a  little. 

There  was  a  strange  brightening  in  his  dusky 
eyes,  followed  by  a  momentary  obscuration  and 
haziness,  as  though  a  few  sparks  had  risen  to 
their  surface  from  some  heated  abyss,  and  had 
gone  out  there  in  a  trifle  of  smoke.  He  started 
up  and  paced  the  room  briskly  for  some  seconds, 
meanwhile  tightly  clasping  his  dried-up,  blackened 
claws  across  his  coat-skirts,  perhaps  to  keep  his 
long  tail  from  wagging  too  conspicuously  inside 
his  trousers, — that  is  supposing  he  possessed  such 
an  unearthly  embellishment. 

"  I'll  tell  you  what  we  want,"  he  at  last  chuckled, 
with  the  air  of  a  man  who  is  about  to  utter  a 
devilish  good  joke.  "We  want,  first,  a  bill  to 
stop  the  collection  of  interest  until  the  loan  falls 

(152) 


IIOXEST   JOHN    VAXK.  153 

due,  when  we  will  pay  the  one  hundred  and  thirty 
millions  at  once,  if  we  can.  Second,  we  want  a 
bill  to  change  the  government  lien  from  a  first  to 
a  second  mortgage,  so  that  we  can  issue  a  batch 
of  first-mortgage  bonds  and  raise  money  for  cur 
rent  expenses.  That's  all  we  want  now,  Vane, 
and  I'm  sure  it's  moderate." 

"O,  ain't  it,  though?"  grinned  Honest  John, 
half  indignant  and  half  amused  at  this  impudent 
rapacity.  "  I'm  sure  it's  very  kind  of  you  not  to 
ask  Uncle  Sam  to  throw  in  the  whole  loan  as  a 
present.  I  dare  say  you  might  get  it." 

"  O,  we're  not  a  bit  greedy,"  Dorman  continued 
to  chuckle.  "Well,  now,  to  go  back  to  business, 
we  must  have  good  men  to  help  us.  We  want 
the  very  best.  The  fellows  who  have  pushed  us 
through  so  far  are  mainly  such  notorious  .dead- 
beats  in  point  of  character  that  they  would  throw 
discredit  on  a  recruiting  agency.  We  want  a  fresh 
lot,  and  a  respectable  lot.  We  want  such  fellows 
as  Christian  and  Faithful  in  the  Senate,  and  you 
and  Greatheart  and  Hopeful  in  the  House." 


154  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

Honest  John  Vane  pondered ;  he  thought  of 
his  good  fame,  and  then  he  thought  of  his  debts ; 
he  thought  of  his  insufficient  salary,  and  of 
the  abounding  millions  of  the  Great  Subfluvial. 
Finally  he  came  to  the  risky  decision  that  he 
would  just  ask  the  way  to  the  bottomless  pit,  re 
serving  for  further  consideration  the  question  of 
leaping  into  its  seething  corruption. 

"  How  are  you  going  to  get  us  ? "  he  inquired, 
in  a  choked  and  almost  inaudible  voice,  the  voice 
of  a  man  who  is  up  to  his  lips  in  a  quicksand. 

The  eyes  of  the  Mephistopheles  of  the  lobby 
glowed  with  a  lurid  excitement  which  bore  an  in 
fernal  resemblance  to  joy.  He  had  a  detestable 
hope  that  at  last  he  was  about  to  strike  a  bargain 
with  his  simple  Faust.  There  was  more  than  the 
greed  of  lucre  in  his  murky  countenance ;  there 
was  seemingly  a  longing  to  buy  up  honesty,  char 
acter,  and  self-respect ;  there  was  eagerness  to 
purchase  a  soul. 

"We  can  make  things  just  as  pleasant  as  a 
financier  could  want/'  he  answered,  coming  at 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  155 

once  to  the  point  of  remuneration.  "You  don't 
want  stock  in  the  Subfluvial,  of  course.  If  you 
held  shares  in  that  and  then  gave  it  a  lift,  the  op 
position  lobby  would  bawl  about  it,  and  the  public 
might  impute  selfish  motives.  But  we  have  got 
up  an  inside  machine,  which  is  all  the  same  with 
the  Subfluvial,  and  yet  isn't  the  same.  It  works 
under  a  separate  charter,  and  yet  has  the  same 
engineers.  It  builds  the  tunnel,  handles  the 
capital  once  or  twice,  and  keeps  what  sticks  to  its 
ringers.  It's  a  construction  committee,  in  short, 
which  fixes  its  own  compensation.  It's  a  sure, 
quiet,  rich  thing  for  dividends.  I  don't  know  a 
safer  or  more  profitable  investment.  We  can  let 
you  into  that,  and  you  can  draw  your  hundred  and 
fifty  per  cent  a  year,  and  all  the  while  be  as  snug 
as  a  bug  in  a  rug.  Will  you  come  inside  the  rug  ? 
Will  you  stand  by  the  great,  sublime,  beneficent, 
liberal  Subfluvial  ?  Say  you  will,  John  !  It's  a 
noble  national  enterprise.  Say  you'll  see  it  out." 
As  Honest  John  Vane  stared  at  his  grimy 
tempter,  striving  to  decide  whether  he  would  ac- 


156  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

cept  or  spurn  that  tempter's  degrading  proffer,  he 
had  the  air  of  a  man  who  is  uncomfortably  ill,  and 
his  appearance  was  matched  by  his  sensations. 
There  was  a  woful  sickness  in  his  heart ;  and,  to 
use  a  common  phrase  more  easily  understood  than 
explained,  it  struck  to  his  stomach ;  and  that 
fleshly-minded  organ,  taking  its  own  physical  view 
of  the  matter,  electrified  every  nerve  with  the  de 
pressing  thrills  of  bodily  indisposition.  He  was 
as  ill  at  ease  and  as  pale  as  the  unseaworthy  lands 
man  whom  Neptune  has  just  begun  to  toss  in  his 
great  blanket.  Moreover,  he  felt  that  he  was 
pale;  he  knew  that  he  did  not  present  the  healthy 
countenance  of  stalwart  innocence;  and  this 
knowledge  increased  his  discomposure,  and  made 
him  look  fairly  abject. 

Jt  would  be  impossible,  short  of  reiterating  all 
the  circumstances  of  our  story,  to  give  a  complete 
idea  of  his  thoughts  and  emotions.  But  we  must 
specify  that  he  sorrowfully  blamed  his  wife  for 
those  follies  of  hers  which  had  driven  hkn  into 
debt ;  that  he  cursed  the  widespread  social  ex- 


HONEST   JOHN    VAXK.  157 

travagance  which  had  made  of  that  wife  a  pitiless, 
or  at  least  an  uncomprehending  extortioner  and 
spendthrift ;  and  that  he  cursed  even  more  bit 
terly  that  whole  system  of  subsidies  and  special 
legislation  which  was  now  drawing  around  him 
its  gilded  nets  of  bribery.  There  were  stinging 
reminiscences,  too,  of  his  worthy  glorying  in  the 
title  of  Honest ;  of  his  loud  and  sincere  promises 
to  acclaiming  fellow-citizens  that  he  would  labor 
tirelessly  at  the  task  of  congressional  reform;  of 
his  noble  trust  that  he  might  establish  a  broad 
and  permanent  fame  on  the  basis  of  official  up 
rightness.  All  these  things  went  through  him  at 
once  like  a  charge  of  small  shot.  No  wonder 
that  his  moral  nature  bled  exhaustively,  and  that 
he  had  the  visage  of  a  man  stricken  with  mortal 
wounds. 

It  must  be  observed,  however,  that  his  grief 
and  compunction  were  not  of  the  highest  charac 
ter,  such  as  would  doubtless  accompany  the  down 
fall  of  a  truly  noble  nature.     There  is  a  rabble  in    ' 
morals  as  well  as  in  manners,  and  to  this  spiritual  / 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

[  mobocracy  Vane  belonged  by  birth.     The   fibre 
of  his  soul  was  coarse,  and  it  had  never  been  re- 
fijied  or  purified  by  good  breeding,  and  very  likely 
it  was  not  capable  of  taking  a  finish,     No  such 
"self-made  man"  was   he  as  Abraham  Lincoln, 
or  many  another  who  has  shed  honor  on  lowly 
beginnings,    and   made   the   phrase   "self-made" 
dear  to  millions.     On  the  contrary,  he  was  one  of 
those   whose   mission  it  is  to  show  the  millions 
that  they  are  disposed  to  over-estimate  the  quali 
ties  implied  by  this  absurdly  popular  epithet.    He 
had  his  good  fruits ;  but  they  sprang  from  feeble 
or  selfish  motives,  and  so  were  not  likely  to  bear 
abundantly.     He  did  not  prize  virtue  for  its  own 
/sake,  but  because  the  name  of  it  had  brought  him 
I    honor.     In  truth,  his  far-famed  honesty  had  thus 
\   far  stood  on  a  basis  of  decent  egotism  and   re- 
\  spectable  vanity.      When    his   self-conceit   was 
sapped  by  debt  and  by  the  sense  of  legislative 
failure,  the  superstructure  sagged,  leaned,  gaped 
in  rifts,   and  was   ready  to   sink  under  the   first 
>   deluge  of  temptation. 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  159 

In  the  expression  with  which  he  looked  at  Dor- 
man,  you  could  see  how  much  his  vanity  was 
hurt.  He  had  a  stare  of  dislike  and  anger  which 
would  have;  caused  a  human  being  of  ordinary 
sensibilities  cither  to  quit  the  room  or  roll  up  his 
sleeves  for  a  fight.  Like  many  another  over- 
tempted  person,  he  hated  his  tempter  while  sub 
mitting  to  him,  and  because  he  submitted  to  him. 
His  soul,  indeed,  was  in  a  confounding  turmoil  of 
contradictions,  and  did  not  work  at  all  as  the 
souls  of  accountable  creatures  are  meant  to 
work.  Had  he  retained  full  presence  of  mind,  he 
would  have  held  back  his  concession  to  wrong 
until  he  could  make  a  bargain,  and  sell  his  soul 
for  at  least  what  little  it  was  worth.  But  his  very 
first  words  of  sin  were  at  once  an  apology  for  it 
and  a  confession  that  he  was"  not  in  circumstances 
to  dictate  his  own  price  for  it. 

"Darius,  I  am  awfully  hard  up,"  he  said,  with 
an  abject  pathos  which  ought  to  have  drawn  a 
bonus  from  the  most  griping  and  illiberal  of  the 
Lords  of  Hell. 


160  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

But  an  utterance  of  weakness  or  suffering  was 
the  last  thing  in  the  world  which  could  draw 
generosity  from  the  nondescript  sinner  who  had 
come  to  entice  him.  It  may  be  that  Dorman  was 
only  a  fiend  in  embryo,  who  was  still  awaiting 
diabolical  regeneration,  and  had  not  even  com 
menced  his  growth  in  the  true  infernal  graces  ; 
but  if  so,  he  was  a  chrysalis  or  tadpole  of  truly 
abominable  promise,  whose  evolution  would  be 
likely  to  fill  all  Gehenna  with  gladness,  and  cause 
it  to  welcome  his  coming  with  strewings  of  its 
most  sulphurous  palm-branches.  No  doubt  his 
anthropological  experience  had  been  an  advantage 
to  him ;  he  had  absorbed  all  the  evil  that  he  could 
find  in  business,  politics,  and  lobbying;  he  had 
developed  to  the  utmost  the  selfish,  pitiless  in 
stincts  of  traffic  and  -chicane.  All  the  law  and 
the  prophets  that  he  knew  were  comprised  in  the 
single  Mammonite  commandment,  Thou  shalt  buy 
cheap  and  sell  dear. 

The  consequence  was  that  he  listened  to  John 
Vane's  avowal  of  bankruptcy  without  a  throb  of 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  l6l 

compassion.  Indeed,  his  only  emotion  on  hearing 
that  cry  of  a  stumbling  soul  was  a  huckstering 
joy  in  the  hope  of  getting  a  good  thing  at  a  bar 
gain.  The  cheaper  the  better,  the  more  of  a 
trading  triumph,  and  therefore  the  nobler.  Who 
ever  has  read  the  stories  of  those  diabolical  temp 
tations  which  were  so  common  in  the  "ages  of 
faith,"  knows  that  Satan  is  anxious  to  purchase 
immortal  spirits  on  the  shabbiest  possible  terms. 
The  reason  is  plain :  a  beggarly  price  not  only 
"  bears  "  the  market,  but  throws  contempt  on  the 
"line  of  merchandise"  traded  for;  it  exposes  to 
the  scorn  of  chaos  the  spiritual  and,  therefore, 
most  perfect  work  of  the  Creator. 


CHAPTER     XVI. 

DORMAN  possessed  in  full  measure  the  Luci- 
ferian  humor  of  higgling. 

Discovering  that  Vane  was  in  financial  extremi 
ties,  he  inferred  that  he  would  "  sell  out  at  a  low 
figure."  He  had  come  empowered  to  offer  five 
thousand  dollars  for  the  respectability  which  lay 
in  Honest  John's  character ;  but  he  now  decided 
that  he  would  throw  out  only  the  bait  with  which 
he  was  accustomed  to  angle  for  the  ordinary  fry 
of  Congressmen.  If  one  thousand  dollars'  worth 
of  stock  sufficed  to  land  his  fish,  there  would  re 
main  four  thousand  dollars  for  himself,  a  very  fair 
commission. 

"  You  ought  not  to  miss  this  chance,  Vane,"  he 
said,  with  the  calmness  of  a  horsedealer.  "  We 
will  guarantee  you  ten  per  cent,  and  it  is  pretty 
certain  to  pay  fifty,  and  may  pay  twice  as  much." 

"  Of  course  it  will  pay  anything  that  you  inside 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  163 

fellows  choose  to  make  it  pay,"  answered  the  Con 
gressman,  with  a  bluntness  which  revealed  his 
moral  inflammation.  He  was  in  the  condition  of 
a  man  who  is  having  a  tooth  pulled,  and  who  can 
not  but  desire  to  make  a  bite  at  his  dentist's 
fingers. 

"  Well,  that's  so,  of  course,"  admitted  Dorman, 
with  the  smile  of  a  trickster  who  decides  to  make 
a  merit  of  enforced  frankness.  "  But  it  wouldn't 
do  for  us  to  cut  the  profits  too  fat,  you  know. 
We  can't  divide  up  the  whole  Subfluvial  stock  and 
government  loan  among  the  construction  ring. 
We've  got  to  draw  a  line  somewhere.  Say  a 
hundred  per  cent,  now." 

"  Say  so,  if  you  like,"  returned  John  Vane,  sul 
lenly,  meanwhile  searching  in  vain  for  some  pecu 
niary  escape  from  this  bargain,  so  full  of  risk  for 
his  good  name  and  of  humiliation  to  his  vanity. 

"  Well,  I  say  so ;  that's  agreed  on,"  winked  Dor 
man. 

There  was  a  silence  now  which  endured  through 
several  eternal  seconds.  The  statesman  who  was 


164  .HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

for  sale  and  the  lobbyist  who  wanted  to  buy  him 
were  both  alike  unwilling  to  name  a  price,  the  for 
mer  through  shame  and  the  latter  through  nig 
gardliness. 

"  There  isn't  much  of  this  left,"  Dorman  at  last 
resumed.  "  Stands  at  one  or  two  hundred  per 
cent,  above  par.  It's  such  a  safe  and  paying  thing 
that  there's  been  a  loud  call  for  it." 

Vane  made  no  response'.  He  had  an  appearance 
even  of  not  listening  to  the  agent  of  the  abysses 
of  corruption.  The  truth  is  that  he  was  beginning 
to  recover  his  self-possession,  and  with  it  his  fac 
ulty  for  dickering. 

"  I  could  let  you  have  five  hundred  of  it,  though," 
continued  the  lobbyist,  still  bent  upon  getting  his 
soul  for  a  song. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  insult  me  ?"  demanded  Vane, 
with  a  glare  which  might  mean  either  huckster 
ing  anger  at  the  meanness  of  the  bribe  or  virtu 
ous  indignation  at  being  offered  a  bribe  at  all. 

"  Say  a  thousand,  then,"  added  Dorman,  with  a 
spasmodic  start,  as  if  the  offer  had  been  jerked 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  165 

out  of  him  by  red-hot  pincers,  or  as  if  the  breath 
in  which  he  uttered  it  had  been  a  scalding  steam 
of  brimstone.  "  Senators  Christian  and  Faithful 
took  a  thousand  each,  and  were  glad  to  get  it. 
Let  me  see ;  we've  had  to  go  as  high  as  that  on 
some  of  the  House  fellows,  too, — such  men  as 
Greatheart  and  Hopeful,  for  instance.  Well,  I 
ought  not  to  mention  names." 

"  Why,  those  are  our  biggest  figure-heads !" 
Vane  almost  shouted,  springing  up  and  pacing  the 
room  in  amazement. 

"Of  course  they  are,"  grinned  Dorman.  The 
very  highest  sign-boards  in  Congress,  the  saints 
and  the  advocates  of  reform,  and  the  watch-dogs 
of  the  Treasury !  There  are  no  men  of  better 
reputation  inside  politics." 

"  I  would  n't  have  thought  it — of  t/icm"  pursued 
Vane.  "  I  knew  there  was  a  raft  of  fellows  who 
took  investments  in  things  that  they  voted  for. 
But  I  supposed  there  were  some  exceptions." 

The  lobbyist  knew  that  there  were  exceptions ; 
he  had  learned  by  dint  of  rebuffs  that  Congress- 


1 66  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

men  existed  who  were  either  pure  enough  or  rich 
enough  to  be  above  pecuniary  temptation ;  but  he 
was  careful  not  to  mention  this  fact  to  his  pro 
posed  victim. 

"  Well,  you  see  how  it  is,  at  last,"  he  resumed. 
You  see  that  the  candle  of  fame  only  lights  up  a 
game  for  money,  and  now  what's  the  use  of  your 
holding  different  notions  from  everybody  else  ? 
You  have  n't  been  practical,  John  Vane ;  you  've 
been  eccentric  and  highfalutin.  I  put  it  to  you, 
as  one  fair-minded  business  man  to  another,  is  it 
generous  or  just  for  a  capitalist  to  ask  a  member 
to  work  for  him  gratis  ?  I  say  not.  If  I  see  an 
honest  chance  to  make  five  thousand  dollars,  and 
you  give  me  a  lift  which  enables  me  to  use  that 
chance,  I  ought  to  allow  you  a  share  in  the 
investment.  And  that  's  what  I  do.  I  've  got 
five  thousand  dollars  of  this  inside  stock " 

Here  he  had  another  spasmodic  start,  which 
ended  in  a  prolonged  fit  of  coughing,  as  though 
the  brimstone  fumes  which  we  have  imputed  to 
his  breath  were  unusually  dense  and  stifling.  Of 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  167 

course  it  could  not  have  been  remorse  or  shame 
which  interfered  with  his  breathing,  although  the 
five  thousand  dollars  which  he  talked  of  had  been 
given  him  to  transfer  to  Vane,  and  although  his 
own  private  share  of  the  "  Hen  Persuader  "  stock 
already  amounted  to  fifty  thousand.  Of  remorse 
or  shame  he  must  have  been  fundamentally  inca 
pable.  If  he  felt  any  human  passion  at  this  mo 
ment,  it  must  have  been  a  peanut  peddler's  glad 
ness. 

"  And  I  offer  you  twenty  per  cent,  of  it,"  he 
continued,  when  he  had  recovered  his  utterance. 
"That  's  about  fair,  I  think,  for  I  Ve  only  this  one 
investment  on  hand,  and  can't  possibly  attend  to 
more,  while  you  can  dip  into  all  the  national  enter 
prises  that  are  going.  And  don't  you  make  Puri- 
,  tanic  faces  over  it.  It  is  n't  money,  you  see.  So 
help  me  Lucifer !  I  would  n't  think  of  offering 
money  to  you.  It  's  just  a  business  chance.  Is 
there  anything  low  in  a  Congressman's  putting 
his  money  where  his  constituents  put  theirs  ? 

Is  n't  he  thereby  joining  his  fortunes  with  theirs? 
8    ' 


168  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

That 's  what  I  said  to  Greatheart  and  he  could  n't 
get  round  it,  and  he  took  the  stock. 

"  I  '11 — I  '11  take  it,  too,"  was  John  Vane's  re 
sponse, — a  mere  choked  gasp  of  a  response,  but 
heard,  perhaps,  all  through  Pandemonium. 
,  "  All  right !"  laughed  Dorman,  leaping  up  and 
giving  his  member's  back  a  slap,  which  ought  to 
have  left  the  imprint  of  a  fiery  hand.  "Well,  I  '11 
hold  the  stock  for  you,"  he  promptly  added,  with 
a  sly  sparkle  in  his  smoky  eyes.  "  Just  to  keep 
your  name  off  the  books  and  out  of  the  newspa 
pers,  you  understand." 

Our  Congressman  pondered  a  full  minute  be 
fore  he  replied.  He  was  no  longer  Honest  John 
Vane,  but  he  desired  to  remain  such  in  the.  eyes 
of  the  public,  and  consequently  he  did  not  want 
the  stock  in  his  own  name.  At  the  same  time  he 
shrewdly  doubted  whether  it  would  be  worth  much 
to  him,  if  it  stood  to  the  credit  of  Dorman.  His 
countenance  was  at  this  moment  a  study  for  a 
painter  of  character.  There  were  two  phases  in 
it>  the  one  growing  and  the  other  waning,  like  the 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  169 

new  moon  encroaching  upon  the  old.  In  a 
moment  you  might  say  that  it  had  undergone  a 
transfiguration,  though  not  such  a  one  as  apostles 
would  desire  to  honor  with  tabernacles.  All  the 
guile  in  his  soul — that  slow,  loutish  guile  which 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  so  many  low-bred  and  seem 
ingly  simple  natures — rose  to  the  surface  of  his 
usually  genial  and  hearty  expression,  like  oily 
scum  to  the  surface  of  water.  His  visage  actually 
took  a  physical  lubricity  from  it,  and  shone  like 
the  fraudful  superficies  of  a  shaved  and  greased 

Pig- 

<k  I  won't  trouble  you  to  hold  my  property  for 

me,  Darius/'  he  said.  I  '11  hold  it  in  my  own 
name.  Honesty  is  the  best  policy." 

This  last  phrase  was  a  noteworthy  one.  It 
showed  that  he  had  already  entered  upon  the  life 
of  a  hypocrite.  A  little  before  he  had  been  a 
living  body  of  honesty  ;  now  he  was  a  vampire, 
but  he  still  retained  his  decent  carcass. 

"  Xow, — look  here,  John, — would  you  ?"  hesi 
tated  the  lobbyist,  who  had  hoped  to  make  the 
shares  stick  to  his  own  fingers.  "  Christian  and 


I/O  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

Greatheart  and  those  fellows  have  n't.  You  see, 
if  there  should  be  an  exposure,  and  this  stock 
should  be  found  in  your  name,  you  would  n't  be 
on  the  investigating  committee." 

"  Never  mind,  I  '11  do  the  square  thing,"  replied 
Vane,  to  whom  it  had  suddenly  occurred  that  the 
Great  Subfluvial  and  its  " Hen  Persuader"  worked 
under  separate  charters,  so  that  a  man  who  held 
property  in  one  might  plausibly  claim  a  right  to 
vote  on  the  other. 

"  O,  well,  if  you  insist  upon  it,"  assented  Dor- 
man,  much  chagrined.  "  If  you  choose  to  risk  it, 
why,  of  course — Well,  now  about  paying  for  the 
stock  ;  as  you  are  hard  up,  suppose  we  let  the  div 
idends  go  towards  that." 

"  Suppose  we  don't,"  promptly  returned  Vane, 
remembering  how  direly  he  needed  ready  cash. 
"  Suppose  you  hand  me  the  certificates  at  once, 
and  the  dividends  as  fast  as  they  fall  in." 

The  lobbyist  looked  at  his  victim  with  an  air  of 
spite  qualified  by  admiration.  Maelzel  might  have 
had  a  similar  expression  (though  not  by  any  pos- 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  I/I 

sibility  so  vicious  and  diabolical)  when  he  was 
beaten  at  chess  by  his  own  automaton. 

"  I  have  caught  a  Tartar,"  he  grinned.  "When 
you  turn  your  attention  to  finance,  John,  you  show 
your  business  training.  Your  game  is  n't  the 
safest,  though.  All  the  sly  old  hands, — all  the 
fellows  who  have  graduated  in  the  lobbies  of  the 
State  Legislatures,  and  bribed  their  way  from 
there  into  Congress, — all  those  shysters  have  had 
the  shares  sold  for  them  and  taken  nothing  but 
the  plain  greenbacks.  I  see  what  your  false  bosom 
is  made  of,  John, — the  fair  front  of  honest  sim 
plicity  and  ignorance.  It  may  do  you,  and  it  may 
not.  The  faster  a  hog  swims  the  more  he  cuts  his 
throat  with  his  own  hoofs,"  he  added,  with  a  spite 
which  made  him  coarse.  "  You  'd  better  let  me 
keep  the  stock  for  you." 

"  Well,"  sighed  the  imp,  who  had  not  bought  a 
soul  as  cheaply  as  he  had  hoped,  "  have  it  your 
own  way,  then.  I'll  bring  the  certificate  to-mor 
row." 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

AND  now  Honest  John  Vane  had  become  Dis 
honest  John  Vane,  and  justified  Dorman's 
contemptuous  nickname  of  Weathercock  John. 

He  had  accepted  stock  in  a-  financial  enter 
prise,  which  might  fairly  be  called  a  Juggernaut 
of  swindling,  on  the  understanding  that  he  would 
grease  its  rusted  wheels  with  fresh  legislation, 
and  help  roll  it  once  more  througn  the  public 
treasury  and  over  the  purses  of  the  people. 

In  so  doing,  he  had  trampled  on  such  simian 
instincts  of. good  as  had  been  born  in  him,  on 
such  development  of  conscience  as  he  had  been 
favored  with  during  his  sojourn  in  this  christianly 
human  cycle,  on  resolutions  which  he  knew  to  be 
noble,  because  everybody  had  told  him  so,  and 
on  promises  whereby  he  had  secured  power.  He 
had  proved  that,  so  far  as  he  could  be  a  moral 
anything,  he  was  a  moral  failure.  In  all  the 

(172) 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  1/3 

miscellaneous  "  depravity  of  inanimate  things," 
he  most  resembled  a  weak-jointed  pair  of  tongs, 
such  as  pusillanimously  cross  their  legs,  let  their 
burdens  drop  back  into  the  coals,  and  pinch  the 
hand  which  trusts  them. 

In  short,  he  had  easily  fallen  into  the  loose 
horde  of  Congressional  foragers  or  "bummers," 
who  never  do  one  stroke  of  fighting  in  the  battle 
of  real  statesmanship,  but  prowl  after  plunder  in 
the  trail  of  the  guerillas  of  the  lobby.  Their 
usual  history,  as  the  well-informed  Darius  Dor- 
man  has  already  hinted  to  us,  was  this  :  they  had 
acquired  a  mastery  of  log-rolling  and  bribery  and 
stealing  in  the  halls  or  the  lobbies  of  the  State 
Legislatures  ;  and,  having  there  gained  sufficient 
wealth  or  influence,  had  bribed  their  way  to  Con 
gress,  with  the  sole  object  of  plundering  more 
abundantly.  John  Vane,  on  the  contrary,  had 
been  elected  by  a  hopeful  people,  going  about 
with  a  lantern  to  look  for  an  honest  politician. 
He  had  meant  to  be  honest ;  he  had,  so  to  speak, 
taken  upon  himself  the  vows  of  honesty ;  and 


1/4  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

now,  for  a  thousand  or  two  of  dollars,  he  had 
broken  them.  He  differed  from  a  majority  of 
his  brethren  in  piratical  legislation  just  as  a 
backslider  and  hypocrite  differs  from  a  consist 
ent  sinner. 

Can  we  palliate  his  guilt  ?  We  repeat  here, — 
for  the  moral  importance  of  the  fact  will  justify 
iteration, — that  he  came  of  a  low  genus.  It  was 
a  saying  of  the  oldest  inhabitant  of  Slowburgh, 
that  "  up  to  John's  time  there  never  had  been  a 
magnificent  Vane."  No  more  was  there  one  now. 
Although  some  blessed  mixture  had  clarified  the 
family  soul  in  him  a  little,  he  still  retained  much 
sediment  deposited  by  the  muddy  instincts  of 
his  ancestors,  and  a  very  little  shaking  stirred  it 
all  through  his  conduct.  Proper  breeding  and 
education  might  have  made  him  a  permanently 
worthy  soul ;  but  of  those  purifying  elements  he 
had  been  favored  with  only  a  few  drops.  He 
had  risen  somewhat  above  his  starting-point,  but 
he  still  remained  below  the  highest  tide-water 
mark  of  vice,  and  got  no  foothold  on  the  dry 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  1 75 

land  of  the  loftier  moral  motives.  Sidling  crab- 
like  about  in  these  low  grounds,  the  daily  flood 
rolled  in  and  submerged  him. 

It  is  impossible  to  insist  too  strongly  upon  the 
fact  that  he  had  no  sound  self-respect  and  lofty 
sense  of  honor.  Of  that  noble  pride  which  ren 
ders  unassailable  the  integrity  of  a  Washington, 
a  Calhoun,  an  Adams,  or  a  Sumner,  he  had  not 
laid  the  lowest  foundation,  and  perhaps  could  not. 
In  place  of  this  fortress,  he  possessed  only  the 
little,  combustible  block-house  of  vanity.  All,  or 
nearly  all,  his  uprightness  had  sprung  from  a 
desire  to  win  the  hurrahs  of  men  who  were  no 
better  than  himself,  or  who  were  his  inferiors. 
The  title  of  Honest  John  (knocked  down  to  him 
at  such  a  shamefully  low  price  as  must  have 
given  him  but  a  slight  idea  of  its  value)  had 
merely  tickled  his  conceit,  as  red  housings  tickle 
that  of  a  horse.  It  was  a  fine  ornament,  which 
distinguished  him  from  the  mass  of  John  Vanes, 
some  of  whom  were  in  jail.  It  was  a  ;/<?;;/  de 
guerre,  by  aid  of  which  he  could  rally  voters 


1/6  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

around  him,  and  perhaps  win  further  glories  at 
the  polls.  Mainly  for  these  trivial  and  merely 
external  reasons  had  he  striven  to  hold  on  to  it, 
and  not  because  he  believed  that  reputation,  self- 
respect,  and  sense  of  honor  were  precious,  far 
more  precious  than  happiness  or  even  life. 

Such  a  motive  force  is  of  course  no  force  at 
all,  but  a  niere  weathercock,  which  obeys  the 
wind  of  public  opinion,  instead  of  directing  it. 
Vane  had  now  been  exposed  for  some  time  to  a 
moral  breath  which  differed  greatly  from  that  of 
his  hard-working,  precise,  exact,  and  generally 
upright  constituents.  In  the  first  place,  he  had 
found,  as  he  thought,  that  in  Washington  his 
title  of  Honest  brought  him  no  influence  and 
little  respect.  He  suspected  that  it  wras  chiefly 
his  unwillingness  to  have  a  finger  in  the  fat  pies 
of  special  legislation  which  had  caused  him  to  be 
kept  on  the  minor  committees.  He  saw  other 
members,  who  were  as  new,  as  untrained,  and 
as  comically  ignorant  as  himself, — but  who  had 
the  fame  among  the  lobbyists  of  being  "  good 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  1 77 

workers,"  and  able  to  "put  things  through," — 
he  saw  them  called  to  positions  of  distinguished 
responsibility,  far  higher  on  the  roll  of  honor 
than  himself.  He  learned,  or  supposed  he  had 
learned,  that  many  Congressmen  kept  Uncle 
Sam's  eagle  setting  on  their  own  financial  eggs. 
He  knew  members  who  had  come  to  Washing 
ton  poor,  and  who  now  owned  square  miles  on 
the  lines  of  great  railroads,  and  rode  in  their 
carriages,  while  he  and  his  wife  walked.  For 
a  time,  the  prosperity  of  these  knaves  had  not 
punctured  his  soap-bubble  honesty,  .because  he 
still  believed  that  there  was  a  Congressional  pub 
lic  which  condemned  them  and  respected  him. 
Classing  himself  with  Senators  Christian  and 
Faithful,  and  with  those  almost  equally  venerated 
images,  Representatives  Greatheart  and  Hope 
ful,  he  continued  for  a  time  to  stand  proudly  in 
his  honored  niche,  and  to  despise  the  rabble  of 
money-changers  below. 

But  at   last   Dorman  had   told   him,  and    his 
necessities   easily   led    him    to   believe,    that    he 


178  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

was  alone  in  his  virtuous  poverty ;  Christian, 
/  Greatheart,  and  the  other  reputed  temples  of 
righteousness,  were  nothing  but  whited  sepul 
chres,  full  of  railroad  bonds  and  all  uncleanness. 
This  illumination  from  the  secrets  of  the  pit 
bewildered  him,  and  caused  him  to  topple  from 
the  narrow  footing  of  his  probity.  He  resolved 
that  he  would  not  be  the  only  case  of  honest 
indigence  and  suffering  in  the  whole  political 
world.  Besides,  what  risk  did  he  run  of  losing 
his  home  popularity  by  accepting  a  few  golden 
eggs  from  the  manipulators  of  the  Hen  Per 
suader  ?  The  fact  might  become  current  news  in 
Hell,  but  it  would  never  reach  Slowburgh.  Was 
it  likely  that  Congress  would  expose  the  interior 
of  a  thieving  machine  on  which  so  many  of  its 
members  had  left  their  finger-marks  ?  Even  if 
an  investigation  should  be  forced,  there  was  such 
a  trick  as  doing  it  with  closed  doors,  and  there 
was  such  a  material  as  committee-room  white 
wash. 

There  was  still  a  momentous  question  before 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  1 79 

Vane, — the  question  whether  he  would  continue 
to  walk  with  the  Mammonite  crew,  or  make  use 
of  his  deliverance  from  debt  to  resume  his  former 
respectable  courses.  The  manner  in  which  he 
decided  it  furnishes  another  proof  of  the  jelly 
fish  flabbiness  which  characterized  his  rudiment 
ary  nature.  Many  a  cultivated  spirit  tumbles 
once  down  the  declivity  of  guilt,  and  then  climbs 
back  remorsefully  to  the  difficult  steeps  of  well 
doing.  But  our  self-manufactured  and  self-in 
structed  hero  continued  to  stick  in  the  mud  where 
he  had  drifted,  like  any  other  mollusk,  and  ab 
sorbed  and  fattened  and  filled  his  shell,  a  model 
of  stolid  and  immoral  content. 

Just  in  one  direction — the  only  direction  in 
which  he  had  been  thoroughly  educated — he 
showed  energy.  At  business  he  had  worked 
hard  and  made  himself  what  is  called  a  good 
business  man,  sharp-sighted  in  detecting  his  own 
interest,  and  vigorous  in  delving  for  it.  If  in 
the  present  case  he  had  not  made  a  particularly 
fine  bargain  for  himself,  it  had  been  because  he 


l8O  HONEST  JOHN   VANE. 

was  new  to  that  thieves'  brokerage,  the  lobby, 
and  bewildered  at  finding  himself  hustled  into 
it.  But,  although  he  had  sold  his  virtue  at  a 
low  figure,  he  was  now  determined  to  get  the 
full  price  agreed  upon.  As  Dorman  did  not 
bring  him  the  promised  certificate  of  stock,  he 
sought  him  out  and  secured  it.  Next  he  heard 
that  a  dividend  had  fallen  due  on  the  day  of  his 
purchase ;  hence  another  call  on  his  fellow-sin 
ner,  and  a  resolute  demand  for  the  sum  total  of 
said  dividend. 

"But  the  transfer  is  dated  the  day  after  the 
dividend,"  objected  Dorman,  who  like  the  rest  of 
his  subterranean  kind,  did  not  want  to  pay  a  cent 
more  for  a  soul  than  he  could  help. 

"  Yes,  I  know  it  is,"  answered  Dishonest  John 
Vane,  angrily.  "And  that's  a  pretty  trick  to 
play  on  a  man  whose  help  you  ask  for.  Now  I 
want  you  to  make  that  transfer  over  again,  and 
date  it  the  day  on  which  I  took  the  stock,  and 
pay  me  the  dividend  due  on  it." 

Dorman,  wizened  with  disappointed  greed  and 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  l8l 

slyness,  looked  less  like  a  triumphant  goblin  than 
usual,  and  more  like  a  scorched  monkey.  His 
wilted  visage  twitched,  his  small,  quick,  vicious 
eyes  glanced  here  and  there  anxiously,  and  he 
hatl  an  air  of  being  ready  to  drop  on  all  fours 
and  scramble  under  a  table.  Nevertheless,  as 
there  was  no  resisting  a  lawgiver  of  the  United 
States,  he  corrected  the  certificate  and  paid  the 
dividend. 

"  I  don't  see  how  I  came  to  make  this  blunder," 
he  chattered,  arching  his  eyebrows  as  apologeti- 
cal  monkeys  do. 

"  You  don't  pronounce  it  right ;  it  wasn't  blun 
der,  but  plunder,"  smiled  Vane,  with  a  satirical 
severity,  suggestive  of  Satan  rebuking  Sin. 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

IN  an  amazingly  short  time  after  these  solvent 
providences  had  befallen  Weathercock  John, 
all  the  lobbyists  out  of  Gehenna  seemed  to  have 
learned  that  he  was  "  approachable." 
r  These  turkey  buzzards  have  a  marvelous  apti 
tude  at  scenting  a  moral  carcass,  and  Vane,  who 
did  not  so  much  as  suspect  that  he  was  dead, 
must  have  been  already,  in  need  of  burial,  and 
pungently  attractive  to  their  abominable  olfac 
tories.  They  gathered  around  him  and  settled 
upon  him,  until  he  might  be  described  as  fairly 
black  with  them.  Gentlemen  who,  to  be  in  char 
acter,  ought  to  have  had  raw  necks  and  a  sore- 
toed  gait,  croaked  into  his  ears  every  imaginable 
scheme  for  pilfering,  not  only  the  fatness  and  the 
life-blood,  but  the  very  bones  out  of  Uncle  Sam. 
It  is  arithmetically  certain  that,  had  every  one  of 
these  pick-purse  plans  been  carried  out  success- 

(182) 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  183 

fully,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  would  have 
had  to  suspend  all  manner  of  payments. 

Among  so  many  golden  bows  of  promise, 
Weathercock  John  was  able  to  make  a  judicious 
pick,  and  to  find  lots  of  full  purses  at  the  ends 
of  them.  He  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
"  national  highways,"  because  he  was  already 
highwaying  it  on  the  line  of  the  Great  Subfl uvial, 
and  did  not  want  to  become  known  as  one  of  the 
"  railroad  ring." 

He  selected  the  congenial  case  of  a  deceased 
horse,  who  had  been  killed  by  our  tropps  in 
Western  New  York  during  the  war  of  1812,  and 
who  had  already  drawn  his  ghostly  claim  for 
damages  through  five  Congresses,  the  amount 
thereof  quadrupling  with  every  successive  jour 
ney,  so  that  it  had  risen  from  $125  to  $32,000. 

Also  he  pitched  upon  the  case  of  certain  plan 
tation  buildings  in  Florida,  which  had  been  de 
stroyed  by  the  same  indiscreet  soldiery  while 
striving  to  defend  them  from  the  Seminoles, 
or  by  the  Seminoles  while  struggling  to  take 


184  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

them  from  the  soldiery ;  and  which,  by  dint  of 
repeated  "  settlements  and  adjustments  on  prin 
ciples  of  justice  and  equity,"  every  settlement 
being  made'  the  pretext  of  a  new  adjustment, 
and  every  adjustment  the  pretext  of  a  new  settle 
ment,  had  grown  in  worth  from  about  $8,000  to 
about  $134,000, — one  of  the  most  remarkable 
instances  of  the  rise  of  property  ever  witnessed 
in  a  thinly  settled  country. 

Likewise  he  hit  upon  the  grievance  of  a  mail 
contractor,  who,  having  failed  to  carry  his  mails 
and  so  forfeited  his  contract,  now  demanded 
(through  his  heirs)  $10,000  in  damages ;  also 
$15,000  for  mail  services,  in  addition  to  those 
not  rendered  ;  also  $20,000  of  increased  compen 
sation  for  the  mail  services  not  rendered,  together 
with  interest  and  costs  to  the  amount  of  $15,000 
more. 

These  and  some  dozen  other  similar  swindles, 
our  member  took  under  his  legislative  protection, 
proposing  to  put  them  through  as  such  little 
jokers  usually  are  put  through  ;  that  is,  by  tack- 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  185 

ing  them  on  to  appropriation  bills  at  the  very 
end  of  the  session.  As  for  remuneration,  he 
was  fair  minded  enough  to  be  content  with  ten 
per  cent,  on  each  successful  claim,  whereas  some 
unscrupulous  statesmen  extorted  as  much  as  fif 
teen  or  twenty.  It  is  needless  to  say  that,  in 
view  of  this  conscientious  moderation,  the  lobby 
itself  was  stricken  with  a  sense  of  unholy  grati 
tude,  and  began  to  shout  through  its  organs, 
"  Hurrah  for  Honest  John  Vane ! "  You  may 
imagine  how  it  delighted  and  strengthened  him 
to  find  that,  no  matter  what  villainous  trick  he 
played  upon  the  public,  he  could  not  lose  his 
glorious  nickname.  So  cheered  was  he  by  this 
incongruous  good  fortune  that  he  ventured  to 
introduce  a  little  bill  of  his  own  into  Congress, 
appropriating  $50,000  for  a  new  cemetery  for 
"the  heroic  dead  of  the  late  war,"  the  contract 
for  the  coffins  to  be  awarded  to  one  Elnathan 
Sly,  who  was  his  own  man  of  straw  or  alter  ego. 
Meantime  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
those  visionary  projects  which  "  had  no  money  in 


1 86  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

them."  His  motto  was,  "  No  Irish  need  apply," 
meaning  thereby  indigent  applicants  for  legisla 
tion,  or  applicants  who  would  not  offer  to  go 
snacks.  When  an  author  urged  him  to  introduce 
an  international  copyright  bill,  he  cut  short  his 
visitor's  prosing  about  the  interests  of  literature 
by  saying  brusquely,  "  Sir,  I  may  as  well  tell  you 
at  once  that  I  don't  care  anything  about  this 
subject,  and  I  don't  believe  anybody  can  make 
me  care  about  it."  When  some  simple  college 
professors  wanted  him  to  propose  an  appropriation 
for  the  observation  of  an  eclipse,  he  got  rid  oi 
the  venerable  Dryasdusts  by  a  stroke  of  rare 
humor,  telling  them  that  his  specialty  was  Revo 
lutionary  pensions.  When  a  wooden-legged  cap 
tain  of  volunteers  applied  to  him  for  the  Slow- 
burgh  Post-Office,  he  treated  him  with  promises, 
which  sent  him  home  promptly  in  high  spirits, 
and  then  secured  the  position  for  one  of  his  own 
wire-pullers,  a  man  who  had  enlisted  for  the  war 
in  the  Home  Guards. 

A  great  change,  you  will  say  ;    an  unnaturally 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  1 87 

sudden  eclipse  ;  an  improbably  complete  deca 
dence.  Not  so  ;  in  his  inmost  being  Vane  had 
not  altered ;  only  in  the  incrustations  of  life 
deposited  by  surroundings.  Barring  the  mollusc 
ous  characteristics  of  easy  good  nature,  and  that 
sort  of  companionable  generosity  which  amounts 
to  give  and  take,  he  had  never  been  beneficent 
and  unselfish.  He  had  not  moral  sympathy^ 
enough  to  feel  the  beauty  of  virtue  in  the  indi 
vidual,  nor  intellect  enough  to  discover  the  neces 
sity  of  virtue  to  the  prosperity  of  society,  nor 
culture  enough  to  value  any  educational  instru 
ment  finer  than  a  common  school.  Considering 
the  bare  poverty  of  his  spiritual  part,  indeed,  our 
Congressman  was  merely  a  beggar  on  horseback ; 
and  it  was  no  wonder  that,  once  temptation  got 
him  faced  hellwards,  he  rode  to  the  devil  with 
astonishing  rapidity. 

Well,  John  Vane  fell  from  respectable  indi 
gence  into  degradingly  thrifty  circumstances. 
He  paid  all  the  debts  which  he  had  incurred 
during  his  abnormal,  or  at  least  accidental,  course 


1 88  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

of  honesty,  and  knew  no  more  what  it  was  to  be 
without  a  comforting  roll  of  pilfered  greenbacks 
in  his  pocket.  He  hired  a  fine  carriage  for  his 
wife,  and  gave  her  all  the  funds  that  she  needed 
for  entertainments  and  shopping,  thereby  arous 
ing  in  her  fresh  respect  and  affection.  Indeed, 
he  so  far  satisfied  the  pecuniary  expectations  of 
Olympia  that  she  no  longer  found  the  wealthy 
Ironman  necessary  to  her  happiness,  and  fell  into 
a  prudent  way  of  discouraging  his  attentions. 
Once  more  our  member's  home  was  tranquil,  and 
he  happy  and  glorious  in  the  midst  of  it.  A 
man  who  can  dazzle  and  fascinate  his  own  wed 
ded  Danae  with  showers  of  gold  is  nothing  less 
than  a  Jove  of  a  husband. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  Olympia  had  no  scruples 
about  using  these  unaccustomed  riches,  and  never 
once  asked  where  they  came  from.  Had  she 
learned  that  they  were  filched  from  the  public 
treasury,  would  she  have  accepted  and  spent  them 
the  less  freely  ?  A  venerable  Congressman, 
thoroughly  versed  in  all  the  male  and  female 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  189 

wickedness  of  Washington,  assures  me  that  wo" 
men  are  conscienceless  plunderers  of  public  prop-j 
erty,  and  will  steal  any  official  article  which  they 
can  lay  hands  on,  from  a  paper-folder  upward. 

At  last  came  the  end  of  the  session.  As  is 
always  the  case,  it  was  a  season  of  wild  turmoil 
and  uproar,  by  no  means  resembling  one's  idea  of 
legislation,  but  more  like  a  dam  breaking  away. 
The  House  was  as  frantic  with  excitement  and 
as  noisy  with  dissonant  speaking  as  was  the  tower 
of  Babel  after  the  confusion  of  tongues.  Hon 
orable  members  who  had  special  bills  to  push 
were  particularly  active  and  sonorous.  They 
spouted ;  they  tacked  on  amendments ;  they  elec 
tioneered  among  their  brother  lawgivers  ;  they 
were  incredibly  greedy  and  shameless.  An  im 
aginative  observer  might  have  fancied  himself  in 
a  huge  mock-auction  shop,  with  two  or  three 
score  of  impudent  Peter  Funks  hammering  away 
at  once,  while  dead  horses  were  knocked  down  at 
a  hundred  times  the  price  of  live  ones,  and  burnt 
barns,  empty  cotton  bags,  rotten  steamers,  and 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 


unbuilt  railroads  went  at  similar  swindling  prices, 
the  victimized  purchaser  in  every  case  being-  a 
rich  simpleton  called  Uncle  Sam.  The  time, 
talents,  and  parliamentary  skill  of  the  honest 
members  were  nearly  all  used  up  in  detecting  and 
heading  off  the  immortal  steeds  which  were 
turned  into  the  national  pastures  by  the  dishon 
est  ones.  Many  measures  of  justice,  of  govern 
mental  reform,  and  even  of  departmental  necessity 
were,  perforce,  overlooked  and  left  untouched. 
It  seemed  as  though  the  only  thing  which  Con 
gress  was  not  under  obligation  to  attend  to  was 
the  making  of  laws  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole 
people. 

In  this  raid  of  special  legislation  upon  real 
legislation  John  Vane  was  one  of  the  most  active 
and  adroit  guerillas.  His  "genial"  smile  sim 
pered  from  desk  to  desk,  like  Hector's  shield 
blazing  along  the  ranks  of  Trojan  war.  He  had 
never  smiled  so  before;  he  very  nearly  smiled 
himself  sick  ;  he  proved  himself  the  smiler  of 
smilers.  There  was  no  resisting  such  an  obvi- 


HONEST   JOHN    VAXK.  IQI 

ously  warm-hearted  fellow,*  especially  as  he  was 
generous,  too,  offering  to  vote  as  he  would  be 
voted  for.  And  everything  prospered  with  him  ; 
the  taxes  gathered  from  his  countrymen  melted 
on  his  schemes  like  butter  on  hot  pancakes ;  and 
when  he  left  the  House  at  midnight  he  was  a  man 
in  "respectable  circumstances." 

He  now  had  funds  enough  to  carry  the  next 
nominating  caucus  in  his  district,  and  thus,  with 
Dorman's  potent  aid,  to  make  fairly  sure  of  a  re 
turn  to  Congress.  As  he  had  once  swept  the 
ballot-boxes  as  Honest  John  Vane,  so  he  purposed 
to  sweep  them  again  as  Dishonest  John  Vane. 
But  is  the  golden  calf  of  lobbydom  to  be  the  di 
recting  deity  of  our  politics  forever?  Is  no  axe 
to  be  laid  to  the  root  of  this  green  bay  tree  of 
Slowburgh  ?  We  shall  see. 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

WHAT  were  the  prospects  of  Weathercock 
John  in  the  face  of  that  terrible  scrutiny  of 
political  character,  a  new  election  ? 

He  had  now  served  two  years  in  the  honorable 
Congress  of  the  United  States,  after  such  a 
fashion  that,  could  he  have  had  his  deserts,  he 
would  have  served  ten  more  in  jail. 

But — as  the  mountain  brigands  of  Greece  and 
the  municipal  highwaymen  of  New  York  can 
both  testify — it  is  not  the  custom  of  some  com 
munities  to  execute  justice  upon  criminals,  so 
long  as  injustice  is  procurable  for  love  or  money. 
Moreover,  our  ignominious  member  had  thus  far 
been  able  to  keep  that  cardinal  eleventh  com 
mandment,  "Thou  shalt  not  be  found  out"  He 
was  still  worshiped  by  the  simple '  and  lowly 
masses  of  his  district  as  Honest  John  Vane; 
and,  furthermore,  he  had  store  of  that  golden  oil 

(192)    ' 


HONEST  JOHN    VAXE.  1 93 

which  is  one  of  the  best  of  all  lubricators  for  the 
wheels  of  political  fortune. 

Thus,  instead  of  going  to  the  tread-mill  and 
becoming  an  object  of  reverential  pity  to  senti 
mental  philanthropists,  he  went  into  a  canvass  for 
re-election  at  the  head  of  a  faithful  flock  of  baaing 
adherents,  who  did  not  see  how  he  had  led  them 
through  the  brambles  of  needless  taxation,  and 
who  were  so  bewitched  with  the  instinct  of  fol 
lowing  a  bellwether  that,  had  they  discovered  all 
of  Vane's  ignorance  and  rascality,  they  would  not 
have  deserted  him.  Not  that  he  bought  the 
popular  suffrage  with  money,  or  could  do  it. 
Thanks  be  to  the  remaining  mercy  of  Heaven, 
/  few  freemen  as  yet  sell  their  votes  in  Slowburgh. 
Having  no  feculent  system  of  special  legislation 
to  rot  them  with  its  drippings,  they  are  for  the 
most  part  of  sounder  morals  than  the  adventurers 
who  contrive  to  represent  them.  But  there  were 
wirepullers  to  be  conciliated,  oratorical  forums  to 
be  hired,  posters  and  ballots  to  be  printed,  vote- 
distributers  to  be  paid.  Vane's  tithes  from  his 


IQ4  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

relief  and  subsidy  bills  covered  these  expenses 
nicely,  and  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  an  en 
lightened  and  moral  constituency,  fond  of  economy 
in  national  legislation,  and  boastful  of  the  honesty 
which  a  republic  is  supposed  to  generate. 

Of  course  he  found  the  franking  privilege  as 
useful  as  if  he  had  never  denounced  it.  He  was 
almost  grateful  in  these  campaigning  days  for  the 
congressional  insignificance  which  had  disenabled 
him  from  reforming  that  abuse.  A  so-called  sec 
retary,  whom  he  had  left  in  Washington  with 
several  thousand  "  franks,"  sold  one  half  of  those 
autographs  as  his  own  perquisite,  and  deluged 
Vane's  field  of  labor  with  the  other  half.  Every 
mechanic  in  Slowburgh  got  a  report  on  agricul 
ture,  and  every  farmer  got  a  report  on  manufac 
tures.  The  speeches  which  the  so-called  secretary 
had  written,  and  which  our  member  had  obtained 
leave  to  print  in  the  Congressional  Globe  without 
preliminary  delivery,  fell  in  such  abundant  showers 
throughout  the  district  that  it  was  a  wonder  they 
had  not  been  foretold  in  the  almanac.  The  Wash- 


HONEST   JOHN'    VANE.  IQ5 

ingtonian  assistant,  by  the  way,  must  have  been 
a  fellow  of  some  ability ;  he  managed  this  system 
of  political  irrigation  not  only  with  vigor,  but 
with  judgment.  For  example,  among  all  tlie 
public  documents  with  which  he  fructified  Slow- 
burgh,  there  was  not  a  single  copy  of  the  Report 
on  the  Corruption  of  Members  of  Congress.  It 
was  judicious,  certainly;  for  had  we  been  brought 
to  remember  the  infamy  of  Matteson,  we  might 
not  have  been  so  happy  in  voting  for  Vane. 

There  was,  indeed,  one  ugly  week,  when  it 
seemed  as  if  the  torches  of  our  nocturnal  proces 
sions  burned  blue,  and  we  almost  feared  to  look  at 
our  candidate  lest  we  should  see  signs  of  unworth- 
iness  in  his  face.  Certain  lobbyists,  who  had  not 
been  able  to  get  what  they  thought  their  allow 
ance  of  eggs  out  of  the  Hen  Persuader,  set  afloat 
vindictive  stories  to  the  effect  that  that  wonderful 
financial  machine  was  nothing  but  a  contrivance 
to  corrupt  Congressmen  into  voting  favors  to  the 
Great  Subfluvial,  and  that  its  retaining  fees  had 
been  pocketed  by  some  of  the  most  famous  cham- 


196  HONEST  JOHN   VANE. 

pions  of  our  party,  such  as  Christian,  Greatheart, 
and  Honest  John  Vane. 

These  charges  were  picked  up  and  used  for 
ammunition  by  a  brazen  opposition  which  was  as 
deep  in  the  mud  as  we  were  in  the  mire.  Every 
shot  spread  consternation  through  our  array. 
There  was  danger  lest  we  should  set  up  the  Gaul 
ish  war-cry  of  Nous  sommes  tra/iis,  and  either 
flinch  from  the  polls  or  vote  a  split  ticket.  Even 
the  political  priesthood  of  wirepullers,  who  stood 
about  Vane  as  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  elders 
encompassed  Leslie,  began  to  doubt  whether  it 
would  not  be  well  to  make  another  nomination. 
But  in  the  end  this  select  and  tried  synagogue  (of 
Satan  ?)  decided  to  stick  to  their  candidate  and  to 
patch  up  the  rents  in  his  ephod.  They  began  by 
denying  flatly  that  he  owned  any  Hen  Persuader 
stock,  or  any  other  property  connected  with  the 
Great  Subfluvial.  Next  they  set  a  committee 
over  him  to  prevent  him  from  avowing  such  own 
ership.  This  committee  guarded  him  all  day  and 
put  him  to  bed  at  night ;  it  went  before  him  like 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

a  cloud  and  behind  him  like  a  darkness,  keeping 
him  constantly  shrouded  in  non-committalism  ;  it 
held  interviewing  reporters  at  a  distance,  or  whis 
pered  evasive  answers  to  their  questions.  Never 
was  a  Grand  Lama  or  a  Roi  Faineant  more  com 
pletely  secluded.  Only  a  deaf-mute,  with  all  his 
fingers  amputated,  could  be  laid  under  such  a  con 
versational  embargo. 

This  inspired  discretion  had  its  reward  ;  various 
providences  arrived  to  favor  it.  Good  and  true 
men  perceived  that  the  whole  air  was  full  of 
"  campaign  lies,"  and  naturally  inferred  that  this 
story  about  the  Hen  Persuader  briberies  was  one 
of  them.  Moreover,  it  was  soon  "  nailed  to  the 
counter  "  by  positive  and  public  letters  of  denial 
from  Christian,  Greatheart,  and  other  implicated 
seraphim.  Of  course  such  men  would  not  pre 
varicate,  we  argued,  and  considered  the  charges 
entirely  refuted.  And  now  we  justified  Weather 
cock  John  ;  we  imputed  his  silence  to  the  con 
scious  rectitude  of  a  worthy  soul ;  we  said  that  he 
had  done  rightly  in  treating  slander  with  unre- 


198  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

sponsive  scorn.  Thus  reassured,  we  went  in  a 
solid  phalanx  to  the  polls,  and  triumphantly  sent 
our  special  legislator  back  to  Congress. 

Nobody  was  better  pleased  with  the  victory 
than  Darius  Dorman.  It  was,  by  the  way,  some 
what  of  a  satire  upon  our  human  joy  that  such  a 
"  burnt  eyed  nigger  "  of  the  pit,  such  a  mere  field- 
hand  in  the  earthly  plantation  of  Lucifer,  should 
have  shared  it.  The  moment  he  heard  the  result 
he  looked  up  Vane  and  congratulated  him  in  forms 
and  liturgies  of  profanity  not  often  heard  above 
ground. 

"  It  is  a  triumph  of  the  good  cause,"  he  contin 
ued,  with  so  sarcastic  a  grin  that  our  heavy-witted 
member  thought  him  either  impertinent  or  crazy ; 
"  and,  by  the  infernal  hoofs  and  horns,  the  good 
cause  needed  it.  If  we  had  been  beaten,  the 
Great  Subfluvial  would  have  been  smashed  to 
make  way  for  some  other  national  enterprise.  As 
it  is,  I  think  we  can  keep  things  white-washed, 
and  perhaps  head  off  an  investigation  altogether." 

"  An  investigation !"  exclaimed  Vane,  his  genial 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  199 

smile  falling  agape  with  dismay.  "  Do  you  think 
there  will  be  an  investigation  ?" 

"  You  may  bet  what  soul  you  have  on  it,"  de 
clared  the  lobbyist.  "  Just  as  sure  as  the  party 
believes  those  charges  to  be  false,  it  will  demand 
an  overhauling  of  them,  of  course,  to  confound  the 
opposition." 

Our  Congressman  saw  the  point,  and  seemed 
to  feel  it  in  his  marrow.  "  If  they  look  this  thing 
up,"  he  gasped,  "  what  's  to  become  of  me  ?" 

"*I  don't  know  and  I  don't  care,"  responded 
Dorman,  with  a  frank  brutality  which  made  Vane 
resolve  not  to  quarrel  with  him  ;  "  what  I  want  to 
know  is,  what  's  to  become  of  me?  Here  I  have 
all  my  results  and  my  materials  of  labor  in  those 
two  companies.  If  the  Hen  Persuader  is  called 
on  to  refund  to  the  Subfluvial,  or  if  the  Subfluvial 
is  foreclosed  on  by  the  government,  I  am  a  poor 
devil  for  certain.  Well,  we  are  in  the  same  boat ; 
we  must  pull  together.  If  you  won't  expose  my 
fashion  of  doing  business,  I  won't  expose  your 
share  in  the  profits  of  it." 


2OO  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

Vane  answered  in  his  non-committal  fashion  ; 
he  said  nothing,  and  he  did  not  even  look  at  his 
guide  and  ruler  in  sin ;  but  he '  gently  nodded 
his  assent. 

"  I  always  meant  to  pay  you  for  that  stock,"  he 
continued,  for  he  was  very  anxious  now  to  make 
friends  with  this  Mammon  of  unrighteousness. 
"  I  '11  settle  with  you  for  it  some  day,  Darius  ;  I  'm 
a  little  short  now.  This  election,  you  know." 

"  O,  yes,  I  know,"  Dorman  grinned  epileptically. 
"  It  has  cost  us  both  a  good  bit  of  money.  Well, 
take  your  time  about  it ;  pay  me  when  it  comes 
handy.  I  can  trust  your  honesty,  John,  under  the 
circumstances." 

The  Congressman  turned  away,  "full  of  an 
inward  wrath,  but  placid,  meek,  and  sleek  on  the 
surface,  for  his  tallowy  nature  did  not  come  easily 
to  an  open  boil.  He  was  angry  at  the  lobbyist 
for  his  sarcasm ;  he  perfectly  hated  him  for  that 
avarice  and  hardness  which  would  not  give  a 
receipt  for  payment  on  those  shares,  without  the 
money ;  but  he  must  not  and  would  not  quarrel 
with  him,  so  brotherly  is  the  communion  of  Satan ! 


CHAPTER     XX. 

FOR  once  Dorman  was  correct  in  a  prophecy. 
The  recollection  of  the  "  Great  Subfluvial 
slanders  "  rankled  in  the  soul  of  an  honest  and 
truth-loving  nation. 

After  the  election  had  been  carried  and  the 
country  duly  saved  from  its  quadrennial  crisis,  it 
seemed  just  and  necessary  to  put  calumny  to  open 
shame,  and  thus  rob  it  of  influence  in  the  future. 
Virtuous  constituencies  and  a  press  which  at  least 
spoke  the  words  of  virtue  clamored  for  an  invest 
igation  which  should  vindicate  the  innocence  of 
Christian,  Greatheart,  and  Company,  and  put  their 
lying  accusers  in  the  pillory.  "  We  want  justice 
done  you,"  cheerfully  shouted  a  believing  party  to 
its  demi-gods,  streaming  piteously  with  the  rotten 
eggs  of  the  Hen  Persuader. 

It  was  in  vain  that  these  revered  fetishes  whis 
pered  to  their  confidants  that  justice  was  pre- 

(201) 


2O2  HONEST   JOHN   VANE. 

cisely  what  they  were  afraid  of,  and  interceded 
with  such  divinities  as  they  believed  in  to  save 
them  from  their  friends.  In  vain  did  a  sadly  wise 
Congress  endeavor  to  amuse  and  pacify  the  coun 
try  by  throwing  overboard  that  precious  tub  of 
abuses,  the  franking  privilege.  In  vain  did 
Weathercock  John  set  his  daily  organ  to  celebrat 
ing  and  imputing  to  himself  a  reform  which 
he  had  so  long  promised  and  which  he  now  so 
unwillingly  conceded.  The  popular  whale  took 
no  notice  of  a  plaything  which  at  any  other  time 
might  have  diverted  it  for  years,  and  continued  to 
thrash  the  political  ocean  into  foam  with  its  rush- 
ings  and  plungings  after  investigations. 

Amid  this  commotion  John  Vane  rowed  about 
in  his  cockle-shell  of  a  character  with  all  the  agil 
ity  that  terror  can  give.  He  was  so  accustomed 
to  value  himself  on  being  honest  that  the  thought 
of  being  publicly  condemned  as  dishonest  was 
almost  as  dreadful  to  him  as  it  would  have  been 
to  an  upright  soul.  So  oppressive  was  his  wretch 
edness  that  he  craved  not  only  help  but  also  sym- 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  2O3 

pathy,  that  favorite  consolation  of  the  sorrowful 
feeble.  He  was  in  the  spiritual  state  of  certain 
weak-minded  murderers,  who  cannot  sleep  of 
nights  until  they  have  told  some  friend  the  par 
ticulars  of  their  crime.  So  entirely  had  the  back-  - 
bone  been  taken  out  of  him  that  he  could  not 
hold  himself  erect  in  the  presence  of  his  wife,  but 
wilted  upon  her  slight  shoulder  for  support.  It 
was  an  abject  confession  of  decrepitude ;  for  he 
had  learned  to  consider  her  as  totally  lacking  in 
practical  sense,  and  there  were  impatient  moments 
when  he  thought  of  her  as  merely  a  lively  dunce. 
But  now  he  must  have  pity,  though  it  came  from 
a  peacock. 

'•  I'm  afraid  there's  trouble  a  brewing  for  us," 
he  said,  one  evening,  shaking  that  perplexed  head 
of  his  which  had  been  the  admiration  of  his  con 
stituents,  and  which  certainly  looked  large  enough 
to  hold  all  the  problems  of  state. 

''What's  the  matter  now?"  asked  Olympia. 

She  did  not  think  of  trouble  to  the  nation,  nor 
of  trouble  to  her  husband.  The  only  idea  which 


2O4  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

occurred  to  her  was  that  perhaps  there  was  a 
scarcity  of  money,  and  she  might  be  called  on  to 
give  up  the  honors  of  house  keeping  and  put  on 
the  disgusting  humility  of  lodgings.  It  was  also 
a  little  disagreeable  to  her,  this  way  that  John 
sometimes  got  into  of  coming  to  her  with  his 
grievances,  and  trying  to  ease  his  own  mind  by 
burdening  hers.  It  was  hardly  more  pleasant 
than  having  a  dog  make  a  bed  for  himself  on  the 
skirts  of  one's  lilac  silk.  She  possessed  in  large 
measure  that  unsympathy,  alleged  by  some  writers 
to  amount  to  hostility,  which  certainly  does  exist 
to  some  extent  between  the  sexes.  Her  world 
was  very  different  from  her  husband's  world,  and 
she  did  not  much  care  to  have  him  take  an  in 
terest  in  hers,  nor  did  she  want  at  all  to  worry 
about  his.  That  the  two  spheres  had  any  inti 
mate  connection  she  could  rarely  perceive,  except 
when  the  masculine  one  ceased  to  radiate  gold 
upon  the  feminine  one. 

"  Well,  the  matter  is  this  stupid  outcry  for  in 
vestigations,"  sighed  John,  loosening  the  cravat 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

about  his  somewhat  pulpy  throat,  as  if  fearful  lest 
it  should  make  a  hangman's  circle  there. 

"  What  investigations  ?  Who  is  to  be  investi 
gated?"  demanded  Olympia,  who  was  as  ignorant 
of  the  whole  matter  as  if  she  were  an  inhabitant 
of  some  celestial  world  where  investigations  were 
not  needed,  or  of  some  infernal  one  where  they 
were  of  no  use. 

"  Well,  it's  a  secret,"  the  special  legislator  con 
tinued  to  drawl,  talking  about  his  misdeed  unwil 
lingly,  but  unable  to  stop  talking  about  it.  "  How 
ever,  I  suppose  it  '11  all  be  out  before  long.  I 
thought  I  might  as  well  prepare  your  mind  for  it," 
he  concluded,  feebly  hoping  that  she  would  say 
something  to  prepare  his  mind. 

"Well,  what  is  it?"  asked  the  wife,  distinctly 
foreseeing  trouble  for  herself,  and  becoming  there 
fore  deeply  interested. 

.  "O,  I  thought  I  told  you,"  answered  John,  whose 
scared  conscience  had  been  babbling  at  such  a 
rate  that  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  had  made 
audible  confession  of  his  whole  iniquity.  "  Well, 


2O6  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

it's  something  about  this  Great  Subfluvial  Tunnel 
under  the  Mississippi,  from  the  Lakes  to  New 
Orleans, — great  national  enterprise,  you  know. 
You  see,  it  was  a  pretty  heavy  thing  for  Simon 
Sharp  and  the  other  boss  stockholders  to  carry, 
and  they  had  to  get  some  additional <  assistance 
from  Congress,  and  to  do  that  they  gave  some  of 
the  members  stock, — or  rather  sold  it  to  them," 
he  added,  doubting  whether  he  could  trust  even 
his  wife  with  all  the  truth.  "Well,  some  of  the 
newspapers  are  charging  that  this  is  bribery  and 
corruption,  and  are  bawling  for  an  investigation 
and  making  a  row  generally,  as  though  it  was  any 
thing  new,  by  George!" 

"Have  you  got  any  of  the  stock?"  inquired 
Olympia.  She  saw  that  the  subject  was  a  sore 
one  to  her  husband,  but  she  was  not  much  in  the 
habit  of  sparing  his  feelings,  and  so  was  able  to 
come  promptly  and  squarely  to  the  point. 

"  Not  much,"  replied  John,  loosening  his  cravat 
once  more. .  "  Only  a  thousand." 

"That  isn't  much,"  said  the  wife,  rather  scorn 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  2O/ 

ing  him  for  not  having  received  more.  "Why 
don't  you  sell  it  and  get  it  off  your  hands?" 

Vane  made  no  answer.  Of  course,  selling  the 
stock  would  not  hide  the  fact  that  he  had  owned 
it,  nor  shield  him  from  ugly  questions  as  to  how 
he  came  to  be  possessed  of  it.  But  it  seemed  use 
less  to  try  to  explain  this  to  Olympia,  women  were 
so  irretrievably  dark-minded  in  business  matters. 

''Does  it  pay  anything?"  she  asked,  merely 
guessing  from  his  silence  that  the  property  was 
profitable,  and  that  therefore  he  did  not  wish  to 
part  with  it. 

"  About  fifteen  hundred  a  year,"  confessed  the 
husband,  with  a  sheepish  air ;  "  or  maybe  two 
thousand." 

"  Two  thousand ! "  exclaimed  the  modern  Portia, 
who,  as  a  legislator,  was  even  more  "  self-taught " 
than  her  husband,  and  consequently  more  un 
scrupulous.  "  Why,  you  must  n't  think  of  selling 
it." 

The  statesman  gazed  at  his  privy  counsellor  in 
despair.  She  could  not  grasp  the  situation,  and 


208  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

he  might  have  known  that  she  could  not  To  ap 
peal  to  such  a  woman  for  advice  and  consolation 
in  great  trouble  was  much  as  if  a  drowning  man 
should  trust  to  a  raft  made  of  millinery. 

"  It's  all  very  well  to  talk  that  way,  as  though  it 
was  as  easy  as  A  B  C,"  he  answered,  quite  out  of 
patience  with  the  straw  which  he  had  clutched  at 
to  so  little  purpose.  "  But  supposing  this  costs 
me  my  seat  ?  Supposing  I  get  expelled  for  it  ? 
Then  you'll  understand,  I  reckon,  that  it  is  of 
some  consequence,  and  not  so  very  handy  to 
manage." 

Olympia  perceived  that  dulness  was  imputed 
unto  her,  and  she  felt  very  angry  at  the  injustice. 
She  knew  that  she  was  not  dull ;  nobody  ever 
hinted  such  an  idea  but  her  husband ;  other  men 
complimented  her  for  her  cleverness,  her  social 
powers,  etc. 

"Then  what  did  you  get  yourself  in  such  a 
scrape  for  ? "  she  retorted  sharply.  "  You  needn't 
blame  me  for,  it ;  I  didn't  do  it." 

"  Yes,  you  did,"  insisted  John,  and  with  much 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  2OQ 

truth.  "  I  got  into  this  very  scrape  to  raise  money 
for  your  house  keeping  and  receptions  and  car 
riages  and  all  those  other  confounded  ruinous 
things  that  you  could  have  got  along  just  as  well 
without.  And,  by  George,  the  whole  fol-de-rol 
nonsense  has  got  to  stop !"  he  exclaimed,  his  long- 
continued  excitement  over  the  threatened  investi 
gation  bursting  up  in  an  explosion  of  domestic 
wrath.  "  We  don't  keep  house  this  session.  And 
we  don't  stay  here  at  the  Arlington,  neither.  We 
go  back  to  a  boarding-house  ;  and  we  go  to  parties 
afoot,  too.  The  omnibus  ain't  running  this  ses 
sion,"  he  added,  with  a  bitterly  jocose  allusion  to 
"omnibus  bills,"  and  their  profitable  loads  of 
special  enactments.  "  Shoe-leather  will  have  to 
do  our  traveling.  It's  all  the  turn-out  that  I  can 
pay  for." 

Of  course  there  was  a  scene.  Of  course  Olym- 
pia  did  not  surrender  her  woman's  right  to  luxury 
without  a  tearful  and  little  less  than  hysterical 
struggle.  But  John  Vane,  rendered  pitiless  by 
terror  concerning  his  political  future,  was  for  once 


210  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

master  over  his  own  household.  He  made  ar 
rangements  that  very  day  for  leaving  his  fine 
rooms  in  the  Arlington  and  going  into  lodgings. 
At  first  sight,  his  economy  seems  unnecessarily 
hard,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  still  had  several 
thousand  dollars  left  out  of  the  illegal  gleanings 
of  the  last  session,  and  thus  was  a  richer  man 
than  when  he  first  came  to  Washington.  But 
this  money  had  gone  into  the  purchase  of  a  new 
patent  in  refrigerators,  and  he  could  not  realize 
on  it  without  sacrificing  a  very  promising  busi 
ness  chance.  Moreover,  he  saw  that  in  the  pres 
ent  public  excitement  about  "jobbing"  legisla 
tion,  he  must  forego  its  emoluments  for  a  time, 
and  thus  diminish  his  income.  Finally,  it  seemed 
to  be  absolutely  necessary  to  put  on  the  guise  of 
poverty,  if  he  cared  to  preserve  his  repute  for 
honesty.  All  these  things  he  explained  to  Olym- 
pia,  in  a  discreetly  vague  way,  remembering  the 
while  that  she  might  be  just  goose  enough  to  go 
and  cackle  it  abroad,  but  anxious,  nevertheless,  to 
make  her  contented  with  him. 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  211 

"  You  see,  we  have  been  going  it  rather  strong 
on  style,"  he  added.  "Ten  thousand  dollars  a 
year  is  a  pretty  tall  figure  for  four  persons,  two  of 
'em  children.  I  suppose  we  got  into  that  way  be 
cause  other  people  set  the  example,"  he  concluded, 
not  wishing  to  be  hard  on  his  wife. 

<:  If  we  could  only  have  the  rooms  on  the  first 
floor,  I  could  stand  it — for  a  while,"  was  the 
response  of  the  insatiable  Olympia,  a  pathetic 
tear  fringing  her  long  and  really  lovely  eyelashes. 
"  They  are  only  fifteen  dollars  a  month  more,  and 
then  we  would  have  a  nice  parlor,  or  at  least  a 
decent  one." 

"  That  means  dinners,  I  s'pose,"  grinned  Vane, 
testily.  "  Big  dinners  and  little  receptions." 

"Do  you  want  to  shut  me  out  of  the  world 
altogether?"  was  the  desperate  cry  of  this  per 
secuted  wife. 

"  Now  look  here  :  I  would  do  it, — I  would  if  I 
could,"  groaned  the  weak  monster  of  a  husband. 
'  It  I  had  a  thousand  dollars  of  capital  loose,  I'd 
spend  it  that  way,  or  any  way  to  please  you." 


212  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

"  Why  don't  you  borrow  ? "  was  the  suggestion 
of  a  helpmeet  whose  ideas  of  a  loan  did  not  ex 
tend  so  far  as  the  repayment.  "  I'm  sure  I  have 
gentlemen  friends  who  would  be  willing  to  lend 
you  something." 

Although  she  said  "friends,"  she  was  think 
ing  of  Senator  Ironman,  and  her  husband  easily 
divined  it.  Should  he  be  angry  at  the  suggestion 
and  reject  it  with  self -respectful  scorn  ?  Well, 
he  was  not  so  sensitive  as  he  had  been  when  he 
came  to  Washington ;  somehow  or  other  he  did 
not  care  so  much  about  the  look  of  things  and 
the  name  of  things ;  on  the  whole,  he  could  not 
feel  indignation,  or  at  least  none  to  speak  of. 
Indeed,  his  disintegration  of  moral  sentiments 
had  gone  farther  than  that  stage  of  indifference 
which  simply  allows  things  to  take  their  own 
course.  After  meditating  for  some  time  over  his 
wife's  advice  to  borrow  of  her  friends,  he  decided 
to  follow  it. 

"  It  would  be  better  to  let  Ironman  lend  me 
the  money  than  to  run  the  chance  of  his  lending 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  213 

it  to  her,"  he  reasoned.  "And  then  I  can  tell 
him  that  I  am  hard  up,  and  give  him  a  hint  to 
let  other  people  know  it.  By  George,  it's  a  queer 
position  for  an  old  business  man  to  be  in,"  he 
added  with  a  mixture  of  chagrin  and  amusement; 
"  I  never  thought  once  that  I  should  come  to 
want  to  be  considered  bankrupt." 


CHAPTER    XXI. 

WHEN  the  Honorable  Mr.  Vane  was  shown 
into  Senator  Ironman's  library,  his  usually 
pink  face  wore  that  pallor  which  anxieties  will 
bring,  especially  when  they  are  accompanied  by 
discontent  with  one's  self. 

The  equally  pink,  though  bony  and  narrow 
visage  of  the  senator  also  lost  some  of  its  natural 
color  as  he  advanced  to  welcome  his  visitor. 
It  was,  by  Jove,  very  queer,  he  thought,  that 
Vane  should  drop  in  at  that  time  of  day,  just 
after  a  fellow's  breakfast,  as  though  he  were  an 
intimate  friend.  'The  two  men,  we  must  under 
stand,  were  not  fundamentally  fond  of  each  other, 
as  is  often  the  case  with  two  men  who  admire 
the  same  lady. 

"  I  don't  altogether  fancy  Vane,"  the  senator 
had  confessed  to  his  familiars.  "  Now  Mrs.  Vane 
is  a  magnificent  creature,  thoroughly  well  bred 

(214) 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  215 

and  well  educated — that  is,  enough  so  for  society, 
you  understand, — a  whole-souled,  splendid,  daz 
zling  woman,  and — and  as  jolly  as  possible.  She 
is  a  woman  that  shows  well  in  a  dance  or  any 
where.  By  Jove,  she's  a  stunner,  that  woman  is. 
I  don't  know  another  lady  in  Washington  that 
could  wear  crimson  roses  in  her  hair  without 
looking  faded.  She  becomes  a  bouquet  superbly, 
and,  by  Jove,  I  love  to  give  them  to  her, — she 
shows  one  off  so !  But  Vane  is  another  sort  of 
animal  altogether.  He  is  rather — rather — in  fact, 
rather  dull"  judged  the  great  man,  hitting  on  the 
right  word  at  last.  "And  just  a  little  low,  too," 
he  added.  "  Don't  always  speak  the  best  gram 
mar.  One  of  your  heavy,  self-taught  men,"  he 
explained,  forgetting  that  his  own  father  had 
begun  life  as  an  hostler.  "  Low  man  on  the 
whole  ;  in  some  points,  very  low — and  -dull. " 

So  you  perceive  he  did  not  admire  his  visitor, 

not  as  much  as  Slowburgh  would  have  expected. 

But  there  were  other  causes  for  the  Dundreary 

perplexity  which  now  winked  from  his  pale  eyes 

10 


2l6  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

and  crisped  his  limited  forehead.  He  had  noted 
Vane's  unusual  ghastliness,  and  the  circumstance 
alarmed  him.  What  had  the  man  got  on  his  low 
and  dull  mind  ?  Was  he  going  to  say  anything 
disagreeable  about  the  Ironman  bouquets  and  car 
riage-drives  and  other  marks  of  esteem  accorded 
to  Mrs.  Vane.  The  senator  was  so  eager  and 
hurried  in  his  expressions  of  amity  and  welcome 
that  he  fairly  stuttered. 

"Mr.  Ironman,  I  just  dropped  in  to  talk  about 
this  Great  Subfluvial  row,"  commenced  our  menv 
ber  in  a  slightly  paralytic  voice,  for  he  was  at 
least  as  much  agitated  as  his  host. 

"  O, — O,  indeed  ! "  answered  the  relieved  digni 
tary  of  the  upper  house.  "  Sit  down,  sit  down," 
he  went  on,  smiling  as  cheerily  as  if  the  subject 
were  an  entirely  delightful  one.  "  Had  your 
breakfast  ?  Just  as  lieve  order  you  up  something 
as  not.  Say  a  devilled  kidney,  now.  Well,  take 
a  glass  of  sauterne,  then,  or  a  cigar,"  he  urged, 
forgetting  that  John  was  a  tee-totaler  and  a  non- 
smoker. 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  2I/ 

"  I  don't  use  either,  thank  you,"  said  Vane, 
holding  on  to  what  habits  of  virtue  he  had  left, 
though  he  wanted  a  glass  of  wine  sadly.  "  Well, 
—about  this  affair,  now :  do  you  think  there'll  be 
an  investigation  ?" 

"  Yes,  O,  yes  ;  such  a  row  about  it,  you  know  ; 
can't  help  coming  to  one ;  bad  for  those  fellows 
that  are  in  it,"  prattled  the  senator,  either  forget 
ting  that  the  bulk  of  his  own  fortune  had  come 
out  of  the  lobby,  or  remembering  with  satisfac 
tion  that  it  had  been  harvested  years  ago. 

"  With  closed  doors,  I  s'pose,"  hoped  Dishonest 
John. 

"  Don't  know  about  that,  by  Jove  !  "  and  Iron- 
man  shook  his  statesmanlike  head.  "  You  see 
we  don't  want  them  open  ;  but  now  and  then 
we  have  to  give  in  to  the  newspaper  fellows  ; 
there's  such  a  row  about  it,  you  know !  I'm 
afraid  some  fellows  have  got  to  go  overboard," 
he  added,  much  consoled  by  the  thought  that 
the  fellows  in  question  would  be  out  of  his  way. 
"  You  see,  when  a  man  is  found  out,  it's  bad  for 
him." 


2l8  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

"Well,"  sighed  Vane,  after  a  long  silence,  "/ 
may  have  to  quit  Washington,  then." 

The  senator  opened  his  eyes.  So  Honest 
John  Vane  was  "  in  it,"  was  he  ?  It  was  curious, 
by  Jove  !  and  he  wondered  he  had  n't  thought  of 
it  before,  and  then  wondered  how  it  was  that  all 
those  honest  fellows  ended  so  badly.  But  these 
ideas  were  almost  immediately  chased  out  of  the 
confined  boundaries  of  his  mind  by  the  reflection 
that,  if  Vane  left  Washington,  his  wife  would  go 
too. 

"  By  Jove,  that's  bad,"  he  broke  out.  By  Jove, 
that  won't  do.  We  can't  spare  you  and  Mrs. 
Vane.  My  wife  won't  know  what  to  do,"  he 
explained,  "  if  she  loses  Mrs.  Vane." 

The  heart  of  Mrs.  Vane's  husband  grew  a 
little  lighter  under  these  acknowledgments  of 
her  importance  to  the  Ironmans. 

"  Look  here !  something  might  be  done,  you 
know,"  continued  the  senator,  thinking  harder 
than  he  had  been  accustomed  to  think  since  he 
left  school.  "  I'll  run  around,  myself,  among  the 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  2IQ 

House  fellows,  by  Jove !  I'll  ask  'em  if  some 
thing  can't  be  done." 

In  another  instant  he  had  an  inspiration. 
"  Look  here  !  Put  you  on  the  investigating  com 
mittee  !  You  needn't  investigate  your  -own  case, 
you  know.  That's  it ;  I'll  try  to  get  you  put  on 
the  investigating  committee.  It'll  help  you  with 
the  people, — clear  up  your  record ;  don't  you 
see?  And 'then,  if  the  doors  can  be  kept  shut, 
why,  you  do  that,  you  know.  Just  the  very 
idea  !  "  he  concluded,  quite  happy  over  his  unex 
pected  attack  of  shrewdness. 

"I'm  afraid"  confessed  John  Vane,  still  re 
taining  a  little  grain  of  conscience,  and  rendered 
timorous  by  it,  "it's  a  Icctle  too  bold  for  me, — 
with  this  stock  on  my  hands." 

"  I  don't  see  why  that  should  hinder,"  stared  the 
experienced  senator.  "  Of  course  you  bought  the 
stock,  (it  's  the  inside  stock,  is  n't  it  ?)  without 
knowing  that  it  was  hitched  on  to  the  Great  Sub- 
fluvial." 

"  But  I  have  n't   paid   for   it,"    sighed   Vane. 


22O  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

"That 's  the  awkward  part  of  the  business.  And 
that  is  partly  what  I  dropped  in  to  see  you  about," 
he  concluded,  his  face  turning  crimson  with 
shame. 

"  How  much  ?"  asked  Ironman  instantly.  He 
understood  that  a  loan  was  wanted,  and  he  was 
willing  to  make  a  moderate  one  ;  in  fact,  glad  to 
do  it. 

"A  thousand  par,"  explained  our  fallen  great 
man. 

"  O,  that 's  nothing  !"  laughed  the  millionnaire, 
highly  amused  that  Vane  should  have  sold  his 
honesty  for  so  little.  "  Let  me  lend  you  enough 
to  cover  it.  How  much  will  you  have  ?  Say  fif 
teen  hundred,  now.  Here,"  he  continued  to  laugh, 
as  he  went  to  his  safe  for  the  money  to  hide  a 
bribe,  "  this  trap  is  always  open  to  a  friend.  I  Ve 
had  too  many  good  dinners  and  pleasant  evenings 
at  your  house  not  to  call  you  by  that  name." 

"I  hope  you  '11  call  often,"  mumbled  John  Vane 
in  a  stifled  voice,  as  he  pocketed  the  greenbacks. 
We  shall  always  be  delighted  to  see  you." 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  221 

He  felt  driven  to  utter  these  common 
places,  but  he  could  not  return  thanks  for  the 
loan.  He  had  a  bitter  feeling  or  suspicion  that 
he  was  not  under  obligations  to  Ironman,  and  he 
was  so  far  from  being  grateful  to  him  that  he  pos 
itively  hated  him.  It  was  a  satisfaction  to  him, 
after  he  had  got  into  the  street,  to  look  back  at 
the  house  menacingly,  and  mutter,  "  You  won't 
see  your  funds  again  in  one  while,  old  fellow,  if 
you  ever  do." 

This  speech  of  his,  by  the  way,  is  one  of  the 
circumstances  of  his  life  from  which  we  can  most 
accurately  take  his  measure  in  regard  to  delicacy 
of  feeling  and  sensitiveness  to  dishonor. 

His  next  business  was  to  hurry  to  Dorman's 
office,  and  announce  that  he  had  come  to  settle 
for  "  that  stock." 

"  What  's  the  damage  ?"  he  asked,  not  at  all 
alluding  to  the  damage  which  his  soul  had 
received. 

"  How  much  do  you  propose  to  pay  ?"  replied 
the  lobbyist,  his  smoky  eyes  giving  forth  sparks 
of  commingled  satire  and  greed. 


222  HONEST  JOHN    VAXE. 

"  Why,  par,  of  course,"  said  John  Vane,  a  little 
alarmed.  "  That  's  the  figure  we  talked  of  when 
I  took  it." 

Dorman  skipped  about  the  room  and  rubbed 
himself  violently,  much  like  a  man  who  discovers 
that  he  has  a  hornet  inside  his  clothes. 

"  It  's  been  worth  three  hundred  all  the  while," 
he  exclaimed.  "  I  could  have  sold  it  for  three 
hundred  the  day  you  got  it." 

Now  Vane  could  not  pay  three  hundred,  nor 
two  hundred,  without  great  inconvenience.  More 
over,  he  was  a  bargainer  born ;  a  bargainer,  too,  by 
life-long  habit,  and  valued  himself  on  it.  He  was 
as  proud  of  his  instinctive,  functional,  and  inevit 
able  dexterity  in  a  dicker  as  a  crab  is  said  to  be 
of  walking  sideways.  So,  although  he  was  afraid 
of  Dorman,  he  resolved  to  show  what  he  called 
the  spirit  of  a  man,  and  to  resist  this  low  attempt 
at  extortion. 

"  Look  here,  Darius,  that  won't  go  down,"  he 
remonstrated.  "  The  stock  may  have  been  worth 
three  hundred  once,  but  it  ain't  worth  it  now. 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  223 

People  don't  want  it  any  more  than  they  want 
shares  in  a  broken  bank  with  stockholders  liable. 
I  '11  bet  a  cookey  "  (John  Vane  was  not  a  sporting 
man,  and  did  not  mean  to  bet  anything),  "  I  '11  bet  a 
cookey  that  you  can't  sell  my  share,  nor  anybody's 
share,  for  a  hundred.  But  I  '11  give  that  for  it, 
because  I  agreed  to  and  like  to  stand  by  my 
word,"  he  concluded  nobly. 

"  O,  very  well,  anything  you  like !"  grumbled 
the  corruptionist,  who  saw  that  he  must  relinquish 
his  plan  for  getting  back  a  part  of  the  price  which 
he  had  paid  for  a  soul. 

"And  I  want  a  receipt  dated  back  to  day  of 
transfer,"  continued  Vane. 

"  Of  course  you  do,"  grinned  Dorman.  "  You 
want  it  very  much  indeed.  Well,  if  we  give  you 
one,  what  can  you  do  for  us  ?" 

"  O,  well,  I  don't  know,"  drawled  John,  who  by 
this  time  had  caught  that  easy  jog-trot  of  manner 
which  was  his  bargaining  gait.  "You  '11  need  a 
good  deal  clone  for  .you  before  the  thing  is  over," 
he  added,  picking  up  the  morning  Chronicle  and 


224  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

pretending  to  read  it.  "  If  I  was  in  the  right 
place,"  he  continued,  after  a  little,  "  of  course  I 
could  help  you  more  or  less."  After  a  further 
perusal  of  the  Chronicle,  he  resumed,  "  By  the 
way,  I  met  Ironman  just  now,  and  he  gave  me  an 
idea  which  might  work  well  for  you,  providing  it 
would  work  at  all." 

"  Nice  fellow,  Ironman,"  smirked  Dorman.  He 
guessed  immediately  that  Vane  had  been  drawing 
on  the  rich  senator  for  money  to  pay  for  the  stock  ; 
and  he  wanted  to  stop  him  from  making  use  of 
that  resource,  for  he  wanted  him  poor  and  in  his 
own  power.  "Eccentric  person  in  some  respects," 
he  went  on  ;  "  but  genial,  generous  fellow." 

Either  because  there  was  offence  in  these 
remarks,  or  because  this  black  little  creature's 
breath  had  some  pungent  quality,  Vane  suddenly 
turned  away  his  head  and  had  a  slight  spasm  of 
coughing,  like  a  man  who  had  caught  a  whiff  from 
a  lucifer  match. 

"Yes,"  he  assented  presently,  looking  rather 
glum.  "  Well,  what  was  I  saying  ?  O,  I  know 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  225 

(and  by  the  way,  this  is  between  us),  he  suggested 
putting  me  on  the  committee  of  investigation !" 

Dorman  laughed  so  violently  that  Vane  could 
not  help  joining  him.  The  peach-blow  face  of 
the  Congressman  turned  crimson,  and  the  sombre 
visage  of  the  lobbyist  turned  almost  black,  so 
apoplectic  was  their  merriment.  There  was  also 
a  sound  of  other  hilarity,  not  so  distinct  and  there 
fore  all  the  more  singular,  about  the  office.  There 
were  faint  but  audible  chuckles  in  the  walls,  along 
the  lofty  ceiling,  and  under  the  floor. 

"  What 's  that  ?"  asked  Vane,  looking  about  him 
with  a  merely  earthly  and  rather  stolid  suspicion 
of  eaves-droppers. 

"  O,  nothing  that  need  interrupt  us !"  smiled 
Dorman.  "  This  used  to  be  a  dwelling-house,  and 
had  the  name  of  being  haunted.  Curious  noises 
about  it,  you  observe  ;  perhaps  from  subterranean 
passages  to  the  devil  knows  where ;  perhaps  noth 
ing  but  echoes.  Well,  John,  I  like  your  plan. 
Here  is  your  receipt  for  payment,  dated  back  to 
the  day  of  transfer.  Give  me  one  thousand ;  no 


226  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

interest  from  you.  We  are  friends,  John,  forever," 
he  concluded,  with  a  peculiar  accent  on  the  last 
word. 

"I  hope  so,"  answered  Vane  mechanically,  and 
not  as  much  alarmed  as  he  ought  to  have  been. 
"  O,  by  the  way,  where  is  Sharp  ?  I  want  to  see 
him  about  this." 

"  Yes,  you  'd  better  see  him,"  said  Dorman,  who 
was  counting  his  bills,  all  miser  again.  "  You  '11 
find  him  at  home." 


M 


CHAPTER     XXII. 

R.  JABEZ  SHARP,  the  member  from  the 
old  Whetstone  State,  was,  it  must  be  under 
stood,  the  real  head  of  the  Great  Subfluvial  cor 
poration,  and  also  of  that  interior  manifestation 
of  it  which  we  have  called  the  Hen  Persuader. 

As  Vane  hurried  toward  this  honorable's  house, 
he  met  that  eminent  and  venerated,  but  just  now 
grievously  slandered  statesman,  Mr.  Greatheart. 
The  two  could  not  pass  each  other  without  a 
moment's  discourse.  By  the  way,  there  was  a 
vast  deal  of  mysterious,  muttered  conversation 
going  on  just  now  among  Congressmen.  They 
had  a  subject  in  common,  a  subject  of  terrifying 
interest  to  only  too  many  of  them,  the  subject  of 
this  approaching,  unavoidable  investigation.  You 
could  scarcely  turn  a  corner  without  discovering 
a  couple  of  broad-backed,  thick-necked,  and  big- 
headed  gentlemen  leaning  solemnly  toward  each 

(227) 


228  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

other  and  engaged  in  such  cautious,  inaudible  com 
munion  that  it  seemed  as  if  they  were  speaking 
only  through  their  staring  eyes,  or  by  means  of 
some  twitching  of  their  noses.  The  number  of 
these  duos,  the  noiseless  gravity  with  which  they 
were  conducted,  the  usually  swollen  configura 
tion  of  the  performers  in  them,  and  the  stupefied 
astonishment  which  was  depicted  in  their  faces, 
all  reminded  one  of  those  numerous  solemn  meet 
ings  of  toads  which  may  be  seen  after  a  shower. 

Mr.  Greatheart  was  not  physically  such  a  man 
as  you  might  have  expected  from  his  heroic  name. 
There  was  not  a  line  about  him,  either  in  the  way 
of  muscle  or  expression,  which  could  suggest  de 
scent  from  that  stalwart  knight  who  guided 
Christiana  through  the  Dark  Valley.  He  was 
short  and  squab  in  build,  with  a  spacious,  clean- 
shaved,  shining  face,  huge  red  wattles  of  cheeks 
hanging  down  over  his  jaws,  and  a  meek,  non- 
combatant,  semi-clerical  mien.  A  bacchanalian 
cardinal,  who  should  lately  have  turned  Quaker, 
but  lacked  time  to  get  the  Burgundy  out  of  his 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 


complexion,  might  wear  a  similar  physiognomy. 
There  was  conscience  in  this  visage,  but  there 
was.  also  spiritual  pride  and  animal  propensity, 
and  perhaps  other  evidences  of  a  nature  not  yet 
made  perfect.  Good  people  who  believed  in  him 
knew  him  as  a  man  whose  public  career  was 
famed  for  spotless,  and  whose  private  life  had 
been  smirched  here  and  there  by  inuendo. 

Just  now  the  Honorable  Greatheart  was  evi 
dently  in  low  spirits,  not  to  say  in  a  bewildering 
funk.  Recalling  our  batrachian  simile,  we  might 
describe  him  as  a  toad  who  looked  as  if  he  had 
eaten  too  many  ants  and  got  the  dyspepsia.  In 
real  truth  he  was  ready  to  call  on  mushrooms  to 
*hide  him,  and  on  molehills  to  cover  him.  His 
condition  was  a  sorry  one,  much  sorrier  than  John 
Vane's.  He  had  pocketed  Hen  Persuader  stock, 
and  then  had  publicly  and  positively  denied  the 
fact,  either  to  save  his  own  reputation  from  the 
charge  of  bribery,  or  to  lighten  the  party  ship 
over  the  breakers  of  the  election.  Now  there 
was  to  be  an  investigation,  and  the  ownership  of 


23O  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

this  malodorous  property  would  be  traced  to  him, 
and  he  would  be  convicted  of  lying.  Is*  it  any 
wonder  that  under  such  circumstances  a  reputed 
saint  should  have  somewhat  the  air  of  a  reptile  ? 

"  Glad  to  see  you,  Vane,"  he  murmured,  shak 
ing  our  member's  hand  fervently,  for  he  was  a 
cordial  man  when  in  adversity.  "  What  do  you 
judge  to  be  the  prospects  about  an  investigation?" 

"  Sure  to  come  on,  I  hear,"  answered  John,  who 
was  much  cheered  by  the  results  of  his  interviews 
with  Ironman  and  Dorman,  and  remembered  that 
he  might  yet  sit  in  judgment  on  Greatheart. 

"  So  I  understand,"  sighed  that  stumbled  worthy, 
his  wattles  drooping  still  lower  and  taking  a  yel 
lowish  tint.  "  Ah  well !  we  may  suffer  severely 
for  this  error.  I  conceive  now,  Mr.  Vane,  that  it 
was  an  error.  Yes,  it  was  a  really  terrible  mis 
take,"  he  went  on  conceding,  for  he  was  in  that 
mood  of  confession  which  gripes  unaccustomed 
misdoers  under  the  threatenings  of  punishment. 
"  A  blunder  is  sometimes  worse  than  a  crime, — 
that  is,  worse  in  its  consequences.  And  circurn- 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  23! 

stances  are  such  in  Washington  that  the  best-in- 
tentioned  of  us  are  occasionally  beguiled  into 
very  sad  blunders." 

"In  spite  of  everything  that  we  can  do,"  eagerly 
affirmed  Vane,  classing  himself  of  course  among 
the  "best-intentioned." 

"  Very  few  men  are  really  fit  for  Congress," 
pursued  Mr.  Greatheart,  in  a  certain  preaching 
tone  which  was  natural  to  him,  he  having  once 
been  a  clergyman.  "  I  sometimes  feel  that  I  my 
self  ought  never  to  have  come  here.  I  had 
neither  the  pecuniary  means  nor  the  stoical  char 
acter  to  grapple  witn  the  protean  life -of  Wash 
ington.  It  is  too  full  of  exigencies  and  tempta 
tions  for  any  human  nature  which  is  not  quite 
extraordinary.  The  legislative  system  alone  is 
enough  to  kill  us.  As  long  as  these  subsidy  bills 
and  relief  bills  are  allowed,  no  man  ought  to  run 
for  Congress  who  is  not  a  Croesus  or  a  Cato.  A 
poor  fellow  will  get  into  debt,  and  then  the  lobby 
offers  to  help  him  out,  and  it  is  very  hard  to  re- 


232  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

fuse.  The  whole  arrangement  is  terribly  severe 
on  men  of  small  means." 

"  Just  so,"  feelingly  assented  Vane,  who  heard 
his  own  decline  and  fall  narrated,  and  was  moved 
to  compassion  by  the  tale.  "  It's  too  bad  on  us. 
Either  the  whole  system  of  special  legislation 
ought  to  be  done  away  with,  or  else  we  ought  to 
be  allowed  a  regular  percentage  on  the  appropria 
tions  we  vote,  and  the  thing  made  business-like." 

"That — that  is  a  bold  idea,"  smiled  Greatheart, 
apparently  not  disapproving  it.  "  Are  you  think 
ing  of  proposing  it?" 

"  O,  no ! "  exclaimed  John,  drawing  back  bodily 
in  the  earnestness  of  his  negation.  "I  suppose 
it  would  .cost  a  fellow  his  re-election." 

"I  suppose  it  would,  unless  he  represented  a 
very  staunch  district,"  said  Greatheart.  "  I  don't 
know  but  one  man  who  would  dare  advocate  such 
a  plan.  I  think — if  you  have  no  objection — that 
I'll  mention  it  to  General  Bourn." 

And  so  these  two  penitents,  who  were  ready  to 
resume  thievery  as  soon  as  they  could  get  free 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  233 

from  their  crosses,  bade  each  other  a  sad  good 
morning  and  parted. 

Next  John  found  Mr.  Sharp,  and  was  received 
by  him  with  razor-strop  smoothness,  as  that  well- 
oiled  gentleman  received  everybody  who  could 
vote  on  his  schemes. 

"  Do  take  a  seat,  Mr.  Vane, — take  a  seat  with 
out  ceremony,"  he  begged,  meanwhile  softly 
handling  his  visitor  by  the  arms,  much  as  though 
they  were  glass  ones.  "  Let  me  offer  you  this 
easy-chair.  You  honor  me  by  accepting  it.  I 
thank  you  kindly." 

Vane  had  an  instinctive  desire  to  look  at  the 
sleeves  of  his  overcoat.  It  always  seemed  to  him, 
after  Mr.  Sharp  had  fingered  him,  as  if  he  must 
be  greasy. 

"  I  am  exceedingly  glad  to  see  you  here,"  con 
tinued  the  Whetstone  representative,  gazing  as 
genially  as  he  could  at  our  member  through  his 
cold,  vitreous  eyes.  "  I  had  begun  to  fear  that  I 
was  under  such  a  cloud  of  misrepresentation  and 
obloquy  that  my  old  friends  would  not  come  to 


234  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

call  on  me.  This  great  enterprise,  which  I  have 
had  the  honor  to  foster  a  little,  according  to  my 
poor  measure  of  financial  ability,  has  been  terri 
bly  abused  and  maligned.  A  national  enterprise, 
too !  a  thing  not  only  beneficial,  but  absolutely 
necessary  to  the  country !  The  noblest  scheme 
ever  indorsed  by  the  wisdom  of  Congress !  What 
do  people  mean?  What  does  the  press  mean? 
What  is  this  investigation  for?  I  am  completely 
bewildered." 

"It's  giving  the  stock  to  Congressmen  that  has 
made  the  row,"  answered  Vane,  who  judged  that 
they  might  as  well  come  to  the  point  at  once. 

"  O,  that  is  it  ? "  grinned  Mr.  Sharp,  with  an  air 
of  getting  light  in  the  midst  of  really  discourag 
ing  darkness.  "  I  am  glad  you  have  explained  it 
to  me.  I  should  have  expected  it  from  a  man  of 
your  clearness  of  vision.  I  thank  you  kindly. 
Well — as  to  that  matter — why,  that  is  simple.  I 
put  the  stock  where  it  would  do  the  most  good  to 
a  good  thing." 

"Just  so,"  nodded  Vane,  meanwhile  thinking 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  235 

what  nonsense  it  was  for  Sharp  to  be  talking 
gammon  to  him.  "But  you  see —  Well,  never 
mind  about  that  now ;  we  may  as  well  get  to  busi 
ness.  There  is  sure  to  be  an  investigation." 

"Exactly,"  answered  the  Whetstone  member, 
sloughing  off  his  coating  of  "  soft  sawder,"-  and 
coming  out  as  hard  and  bright  as  a  new  silver 
dollar. 

"And  I  have  a  smart  chance  of  being  put  on 
the  House  committee,"  continued  John. 

Mr.  Sharp  opened  the  dark-lantern  of  his  Puri 
tanic  visage,  and  let  out  a  smile  which  contained 
all  the  guile  of  all  the  peddlers  that  ever  sold 
wooden  nutmegs. 

"Mr.  Vane,"  said  he,  "are  your  arrangements 
about  that  stock  of  yours  completed  to  your  en 
tire  satisfaction  ? " 

"  I  have  paid  Dorman  for  it  and  got  a  receipt 
that  will  do  me." 

"  Mr.  Vane,  do  let  me  hand  that  money  back," 
pursued  Sharp,  fumbling  in  his  desk  and  produc 
ing  a  package  of  bills.  "  It  was  a  trifling  mark 


236  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

of  private  amity  and  sincere  esteem.  I  never 
meant  it  should  be  paid  for.  Dorman  is  an  able 
business  man,  but  hasn't  an  idea  beyond  trading. 
I  insist,  Mr.  Vane,  on  your  taking  back  your 
money." 

"Well — from  that  point  of  view — since  you 
will  have  it  so,"  smiled  Dishonest  John,  pocket 
ing  the  bills. 

"  Want  any  more  of  the  stock  ? "  inquired 
Sharp,  with  a  cunning  twinkle  in  his  half-shut 
eyes,  as  if  he  saw  a  way  to  recover  his  thousand 
dollars. 

"  No  !  "  answered  Vane,  not  less  promptly  and 
positively  than  if  he  had  been  offered  a  ladleful 
of  pitch  from  the  infernal  caldron. 

"  My  dear  sir,  we  are  at  your  service,"  bowed 
the  financier.  "Anything  that  we  can  do  for 
you,  call  on  us.  Of  course  you  will  have  all  our 
influence  towards  putting  you  on  that  committee. 
Must  you  go  ?  So  obliged  for  this  call !  Let  me 
open  the  door  for  you.  Thank  you  kindly." 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

?  HANKS  to  the  labors  of  solemn  Mr.  Sharp 
and  of  worldly  Mr.  Ironman,  our  member 
soon  had  a  fair  prospect  of  getting  on  the  investi 
gating  committee,  supposing  always  that  there 
should  be  such  a  nuisance. 

But  the  nearer  he  came  to  this  post  of  respon 
sibility  and  honor,  the  more  it  looked  to  him  as 
though  it  might  turn  out  a  whipping-post,  at 
which  he  would  stand  with  exposed  shoulders 
and  bleeding  cuticle.  If  he  as  a  judge  should  be 
able  to  close  the  court-room  doors,  and  keep  out 
not  only  spectators  but  also  the  witnesses  in  the 
case,  all  might  go  famously  well,  at  least  from 
the  Satanic  point  of  view.  But  if,  while  pretend 
ing  to  examine  into  the  little  games  of  others, 
the  same  kind  of  cards  should  be  found  up  his 
own  sleeves,  he  would  be  ruined  beyond  a  hope 

(237) 


238  HONEST  JOHN  VANE/. 

of  re-election.  The  sad  state  of  a  boy  whose 
pockets  are  full  of  fire-crackers  in  a  state  of 
crackling  and  scorching  ignition,  would  be  but  a 
feeble  image  of  such  a  disaster.  In  these  days 
he  vacillated  as  rapidly  and  disagreeably  as  if  he 
were  astride  some  monstrous  shuttlecock,  or  were 
being  seesawed  by  all  the  giants  of  fairy-tale 
land.  His  pulpy  pink  face  wore  an  air  of  abid 
ing  perplexity  which  rivalled  that  of  his  Dun- 
drearyish  friend,  Ironman.  At  times  it  seemed 
as  if  its  large  watery  features  would  decompose 
entirely  with  irresolution,  and  come  to  resemble 
an  image  of  strawberry  ice  which  has  been  ex 
posed  to  too  high  a  temperature. 

Meantime,  the  spectre  of  investigation  ad 
vanced,  and  its  pointing  finger  renewed  his 
sense  of  guilt.  The  approach  of  punishment 
always  enlightens  a  sinner  marvellously  as  to 
the  heinous  nature  of  his  sin.  Even  the  Devil, 
when  visited  by  the  hand  of  sickness,  perceived 
that  he  had  led  an  evil  life,  and  hungered  to 
withdraw  from  a  world  of  temptation  and  thirst- 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  239 

ed  to  take  holy  orders.  Just  so  John  Vane  now 
discovered  plainly  once  more  that  he  had  been 
pocketing  bribes  and  swindling  the  public  treas 
ury,  and  that  these  were  very  wrong  actions.  If 
he  had  never  truly  had  a  conscience  before,  but 
had  regulated  his  conduct  by  the  consciences 
of  others,  he  at  last  possessed  one  of  his 
own.  Indeed,  it  appeared  to  him  a  very  large 
one  because  it  was  sore,  precisely  as  a  man's 
nose  seems  large  to  him  while  yet  tender  from 
a  fisticuff.  From  one  point  of  view,  he  was 
an  honester  John  Vane  than  ha  had  ever  been, 
inasmuch  as  terror  and  remorse  made  him  intelli 
gently  honest  with  himself. 

Before  he  could  decide  to  accept  a  position  on 
the  committee,  he  must  be  sure  that  Sharp  & 
Co.  would  conceal  his  ownership  of  their  stock, 
and  he  called  on  Dorman  to  obtain  a  positive 
promise  to  that  effect.  It  is  wonderful,  by  the 
way,  how  rogues  in  distress  will  trust  each  other's 
word,  even  when  each  knows  by  experience  that 

the  other  is  a  confirmed  liar. 
II 


24O  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

"Look  here,  Darius,  the  more  I  stir  up  this 
business,  the  worse  it  looks  to  me,"  he  groaned 
from  the  summit  of  a  state  of  mind  which  almost 
raised  him  to  the  moral  altitude  of  a  penitent 
thief. 

Dorman  responded  by  groaning  over  his  end 
of  the  burden,  which  naturally  seemed  to  him 
much  heavier  than  Vane's  ;  each  of  these  inva 
lids,  like  the  majority  of  commonplace  sick  peo 
ple,  wanted  to  talk  of  his  own  malady  and  symp 
toms.  Still,  there  was  a  sort  of  fellow-feeling 
between  them,  such  as  even  small-pox  patients 
have  for  each  other.  Dorman  no  longer  purposed 
financial  vengeance  upon  Vane  for  getting  his 
stock  at  par  and  paying  no  commission.  Nor 
was  Vane  sensibly  embittered  against  Dorman, 
although  the  latter  had  made  a  large  fortune 
out  of  the  Subfluvial,  while  he  himself  had  only 
pocketed  a  beggarly  thousand  or  two. 

"It's  the  cursed  unfairness  of  the  thing  that 
yerks  me,"  the  lobbyist  complained.  "  Now  isn't 
it  too  bad  that  the  public  should  want  to  haul 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  241 

our  job  over  the  hottest  kind  of  coals,  when  ever 
so  many  other  jobs  just  like  it  ain't  spoken  of  ?" 

We  must  remark  here,  what  the  reader  has 
doubtless  already  noticed,  that  there  was  some 
thing  disappointing  in  this  creature's  conversa-v 
tion.  While  his  person  and  demeanor  reminded 
one  of  the  supernatural  castaways  of  the  lake 
of  fire,  his  discourse  was  insignificantly  human 
and  even  smacked  of  a  very  low  down  sort  of 
humanity. 

"And  here  I  am  in  it,  for  almost  nothing," 
sighed  Vane,  returning  instinctively  to  his  own 
case.  "  What  sort  of  a  story  are  you  going  to 
tell,  Darius,  if  they  put  you  on  the  stand?"  he 
presently  inquired. 

"  O,  I  would  say  anything  that  would  do  the 
most  good,"  grimaced  the  lobbyist.  "  But  Sharp 
means  to  let  out  a  few  facts ;  that  is,  if  they 
crowd  him.  You  see,  Sharp  unluckily  has  a 
character  to  nurse.  I  dare  say,  too,  he  thinks 
he  can  stop  questions  by  showing  that  he  means 
to  answer  them,"  added  Dorman,  who  always 
imputed  the  lowest  motives. 


242  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

Thoroughly  scared  by  this  information,  Vane 
resolved  to  keep  off  the  committee.  He  went 
home  in  the  dumps,  wished  he  had  never  gone 
into  politics,  and  meditated  resigning  his  seat. 
Perhaps  he  would  have  taken  this  wholesome 
step,  but  he  was  moved  first  to  consult  Olympia 
about  it,  and  she  flatly  refused  to  resign. 

"  I  won't  agree  to  it, — no,  never ! "  she  ex 
claimed,  rustling  in  all  her  silks  with  indignation. 
"Why,  I  have  just  fairly  got  into  the  best  society, 
and  there  are  all  the  receptions  to  come,  and  the 
inauguration  ball !  and  the  winter  is  going  to  be 
so  gay ! " 

"  O — well,"  stared  John,  who  had  not  thought 
to  look  at  this  side  of  the  medal ;  "  but  we  must 
stick  to  boarding,  if  we  do  stay,"  he  capitulated 
on  conditions.  "  I" tell  you  the  winter  ain't  going 
to  be  gay  in  Congress,  and  there  won't  be  much 
money  lying  around  loose,  and  we  must  skimp." 

Before  many  days  he  found  cause  to  pluck  up 
his  courage  a  little.  He  learned  that  Slowburgh 
considered  him  innocent  of  evil,  meaning,  of, 


HONEST   JOHN    V.\  243 

course,  that  half  of  Slowburgh  which  had  voted 
for  him.  The  committee  of  a  certain  association 
sent  him  an  invitation  to  lecture  before  it,  and 
promised  that  "  the  appearance  of  his  honest  face 
on  their  platform  would  be  the  signal  of  frantic 
applause."  Furthermore,  certain  newspapers  re 
marked  that,  although  John  Vane  was  suspected 
of  owning  Hen  Persuader  stock,  he  had  at  least 
not  denied  such  ownership,  and  commented  upon 
the  fact  as  an  unusual  exhibition  of  upright 
ness  and  manliness — in  a  Congressman.  These 
things  revived  his  confidence  so  much  that  his 
mind  was  able  to  work.  He  saw  his  game  clear 
before  him  ;  he  must  get  in  a  "  long  suit "  of 
frankness.  There  was  a  little  trick,  which,  if 
skilfully  and  luckily  played,  would  give  him  such 
a  repute  for  veracity  and  for  just  intentions  that 
all  the  caverns  of  the  Great  Subfluvial  could  not 
swallow  it.  What,  this  happy  thought  was  we 
shall  learn  presently. 

Meantime  the  excitement  of  the  men  outside 
politics  increased.     That  vast,  industrious,  decent 


244  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

American  public,  which  wire-pullers  usually  re 
gard  as  having  no  more  intelligence  or  moral 
principle  than  one  of  the  forces  of  nature,  show 
ed  unmistakably  that  it  possessed  much  political 
virtue  and  some  political  sense.  The  discovery 
that  the  so-called  slanders  against  its  favorites 
were,  in  all  probability,  verities,  only  made  it 
more  determined  that  those  slanders  should  be 
investigated.  The  steady  tempest  of  its  right 
eous  indignation  scattered  good  seed  through 
Congress,  and  produced  on  that  upland  of  states 
manship  a  promising  nubbin  or  two  of  con 
science.  An  investigation  was  ordered,  at  first 
under  hermetically  sealed  conditions,  but  the 
popular  storm  soon  blew  the  doors  open. 

The  rest  we  mainly  know  ;  the  whole  alien 
world  of  monarchies,  empires,  and  despotisms 
knows  it ;  the  capacity  of  republicanism  for  hon 
est  government  is  everywhere  being  judged  by  it. 
In  every  civilized  land  on  this  planet,  thoughtful 
souls  are  seeking  to  divine,  by  the  light  of  these 
and  other  similar  dolorous  revelations,  whether  it 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  245 

is  possible  for  a  democracy  to  save  itself  from 
the  corrupting  tyranny  of  capital.  Within  our 
own  borders  sadder  spirits  are  asking  which  is  the 
most  alluring  spectacle, — a  free  America  falling 
into  squandering  and  bribery,  or  a  monarchial 
Prussia  ruled  by  economy  and  honesty. 

We  know  how  it  fared  with  Christian  and  Faith 
ful  and  Hopeful  and  Greatheart  and  other  vener 
ated  statesmen  who  had  turned  more  or  less  into 
the  ways  of  Achan  and  Ananias.  Anxious  to 
clear  themselves  of  an  ugly  charge,  and  trusting 
that  the  chief  manipulator  of  the  Hen  Persuader 
would  be  willing  to  bear  their  sins  in  return  for 
their  services,  they  had  flatly  denied  having  taken 
any  golden  eggs  out  of  his  abstracting  machine. 
But  this  disclaimer  left  Mr.  Simon  Sharp  under 
the  imputation  of  putting  said  eggs  into  his  own 
pocket,  and  so  plundering  his  partners  in  the  enter 
prise  of  making  the  national  hen  lay  on  indefin 
itely.  Being  a  man  of  exact  arithmetical  instincts, 
and  of  inveterate,  ingrained  business  habits,  he 
revolted  from  such  an  unfair  allotment  of  the  div- 


246  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

idends  of  dishonor,  and  insisted  that  every  one 
should  take  his  own  share  and  no  more.  To  the 
astonishment  of  everybody,  he  told  a  story  as 
straight  and  searching  as  a  ploughman's  furrow  ; 
and  we  will  venture  to  say  that  no  American  was 
proud  of  the  unexpected  skeletons  which  it  turned 
up.  There  was  a  time  when  every  fair  political 
reputation  reminded  us  of  the  Arabian  oil-jars, 
each  one  of  which  held  a  robber ;  when  it  seemed 
as  if  we  should  have  to  concede  that  our  legislative 
temple  was  but  a  den  of  thieves,  sadly  given  to 
lying.  It  was  a  new  and  perversely  reversed 
.)  and  altogether  bedevilled  rendering  of  the  Pil 
grim's  Progress  into  American  politics;  it  was 
much  as  if  Bunyan  had  at  the  last  pitched  his 
Christian  and  Hopeful  into  the  little  lurid  hole 
'which  led  from  the  gate  of  Zion  to  the  pit.  Noth 
ing  could  well  be  more  subverting  and  confounding 
and  debilitating  to  the  moral  sense,  unless  it  might 
be  to  see  silver  Demas  and  filthy  Muckrake  wel 
comed  by  the  shining  ones  into  the  Holy  City. 

And  something  similar  to  this  last  marvel  was 
not  wanting. 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

TT TEATHERCOCK  John  carried  out  his  plan 
V  V    for  getting  up  a  new  and  revised  edition  of 
his  character  as  Honest  John  Vane. 

He  let  Sharp  and  Ironman  go  on  working  for 
him,  declaring  that  he  was  the  most  upright  crea 
ture  on  this  footstool,  and  recommending  him  as 
fit  to  investigate  the  very  claims  of  saints  to  their 
crowns.  But  when  his  name  was  read  as  a  mem 
ber  of  the  committee,  he  rose  and  requested  to  be 
excused  from  serving. 

"  My  reason  is  simply  this,"  he  said,  calmly 
turning  his  honest  face  and  dignified  abdomen 
towards  every  quarter  of  the  house  ;  "  I  own  stock 
— to  the  amount  of  one  thousand  dollars — in  the 
corporation  in  question.  I  will  offer  no  explana 
tions  here  and  now  as  to  my  motives  in  taking  it, 
because  those  motives  will  doubtless  be  demanded 
of  me  by  the  committee  of  investigation.  I  shall 

(247) 


248  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

be  happy  to  appear  before  it,  but  I  cannot  con 
scientiously  be  a  member  of  it.  I  trust  that  the 
House,  and  you,  Mr.  Speaker,  will  excuse  me." 

The  Honorable  Sharp  looked  icicles  from  his 
arm-chair,  and  Dorman  looked  coals  of  fire  from 
his  rear  corner.  But  as  our  member  sat  down 
there  was  a  general  murmur  of  perfunctory  ap 
plause,  and  by  next  morning  he  was  newspapered 
all  over  as  "  Honest  John  Vane." 

Still,  he  was  not  out  of  danger.  As  the  rain  of 
fire  and  brimstone  into  the  Congressional  Sodom 
continued,  and  especially  when  the  blazing  flames 
of  investigation  began  to  light  on  his  own  com 
bustible  garments,  he  was  in  a  state  of  mind  to 
flee  into  the  mountains  and  dwell  in  a  cave. 
When  he  appeared  before  the  committee,  he  did 
not  look  much  like  one  of  those  just  men  whose 
mere  presence  can  save  a  wicked  city.  Moreover, 
Sharp  and  Dorman  testified  against  him  to  the 
full  extent  of  their  naughty  knowledge.  Never 
theless,  Vane  came  out  of  his  furnace  without 
much  of  a  singeing.  He  exhibited  Dorman's 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  249 

receipt  of  payment  for  the  stock,  and  triumphantly 
remarked  that  "  the  document  spoke  for  itself." 
As  for  the  thousand  dollars  which  Sharp  had  re 
funded  to 'him,  he  said  that  he  had  always  regarded 
it  as  a  loan,  and  stood  ready  to  repay  it.  As  for 
the  singular  profitableness  of  the  investment, — 
well,  he  had  expected  it  would  bring  him  in  some 
thing  handsome ;  it  was  his  habit  as  a  business 
man  to  invest  for  a  profit. 

He  tried  to  raise  a  smile  here,  turning  his  gen 
ial  visage  from  one  to  another  of  the  committee, 
with  an  almost  pathetic  effort  at  humor.  But  the 
sad  synagogue  of  investigators  did  not  smile  back ; 
it  had  been  engaged  that  morning  in  digging 
graves  for  some  of  the  fairest  reputations  in  poli 
tics  ;  for  once  a  body  of  Congressional  Yoricks 
could  not  appreciate  a  poor  joke. 

"What  we  mainly  wish  to  know,"  hummed  and 
hawed  the  worried  chairman,  "is  whether  you 
were  aware,  at  the  time  of  purchase,  that  the  Hen 
Persuader  was  a  branch  of  the  Great  Subfluvial 
corporation." 


25O  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

Weathercock  John  was  in  dire  trouble ;  if  he 
said  "  Yes,"  his  character  and  career  were  ruined ; 
if  he  said  "  No/'  he  was  a  perjurer.  It  cost  him 
many  seconds  of  penal  meditation  to  hit  upon  that 
happy  dodge  known  as  the  non  mi  ricordo. 

"  Gentlemen,  I  will  frankly  confess  that  I  did 
not  inquire  so  closely  as  I  perhaps  should  have 
done  into  that  point,"  he  answered,  remembering 
distinctly  that  he  had  not  inquired  into  it  at  all, 
but  had  been  told  all  about  it  by  Dorman.  "  I 
did,  however,  know  that  the  two  companies  were 
acting  under  different  and  independent  charters. 
It  seemed  fair  to  infer  that  investing  in  one  was 
not  the  same  thing  as  investing  in  the  other." 

It  was  done.  Congressman  Vane  had  found 
his  own  way  out  of  his  entanglements.  The  com 
mittee-men  were  ready  to  rise  and  salute  his 
escape  with  benevolent  cheers.  How  in  the  name 
of  political  -human  nature  could  they  want  to  find 
guilty  their  brother  lawgiver,  brother  worker  in 
the  party  traces,  and,  perhaps,  brother  sinner  in 
special  legislation  ?  They  bowed  him  away  from 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  25  I 

• 

their  operating  table  with  a  look  which  said 
plainly,  We  rejoice  that  we  shall  not  be  obliged 
to  amputate  your  able  and  honored  head,  Mr. 
Vane. 

Only  a  few  people  remarked  on  the  shallowness 
of  this  show  of  innocence.  Here  was  stock  sold 
at  par  which  was  worth  three  hundred,  which  on 
the  day  after  purchase  paid  a  dividend  of  sixty 
per  cent.,  and,  only  a  few  weeks  later,  forty  more. 
How  could  a  legislator  and  business  man  doubt 
that  it  was  a  swindle  ?  How  could  he  fail  to 
divine  that  Mr.  Sharp's  Hen  Persuader  was  but 
an  adjunct  of  Mr.  Sharp's  Great  Subfluvial? 

But  the  public, — the  great,  soft-hearted  Ameri 
can  public, — that  public  which  has  compassion  on 
every  species  of  scoundrel, — which  tries  murder 
ers  under  jury  restrictions  warranted  to  save  four- 
fifths  of  them, — which  cannot  see  one  condemned 
t  >  death  without  pleading  with  tears  for  his  nox 
ious  life, — that  forgiving,  milk-and-water  public 
was  as  mild  in  its  judgment  as  the  committee. 
It  magnified  our  dishonorable  member  for  not 


252  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

lying,  and  exalted  his  name  for  not  committing 
perjury.'  What  a  pity,  said  this  lamblike  public 
which  was  so  bent  on  getting  itself  fleeced  to  the 
skin, — what  a  pity  that  our  other  shepherds  could 
not  have  used  the  shears  with  a  steadier  hand  and 
avoided  snipping  off  their  own  fingers  !  In  con 
trast  to  these  unlucky  and  somewhat  ridiculous 
bunglers,  what  a  straightforward,  workmanlike, 
admirable  creature  was  "  Honest  John  Vane." 

And  so  he  escaped  all  exposure  that  could  in 
jure  him  in  the  eyes  of  a  community  of  humani 
tarians,  and  all  punishment  that  could  hurt  a 
man  whose  conscience  lay  solely  in  the  opinions 
of  others.  Even  the  Subfluvial  people  did  not 
follow  him  up  vindictively  ;  they  admired  him  so 
much  for  his  ability  in  sneaking  that  they  could 
not  hate  him  ;  moreover,  they  considered  that 
he  might  still  be  useful.  Not  long  after  Vane's 
escape  from  the  committee,  he  held  with  Dorman 
one  of  those  friendly  colloquies  which  rogues  are 
capable  of  when  it  no  longer  pays  to  quarrel. 

"What  a  horrid  scrape  Christian  and  Great- 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  253 

heart  have  got  themselves  into  ! "  observed  John, 
with  cheerful  self-complacency.  "Why  couldn't 
those  fellows  have  told  a  straight  story  ? " 

"  Half-honesty  is  cursed  poor  policy,"  smirked 
the  lobbyist.  "After  all,  those  chaps  are  the 
cleanest-handed  of  the  whole  gang.  They  want 
ed  •  to  make  an  actual  investment, — something 
that  would  show  like  a  fair  business  transaction, 
— just  to  ease  their  consciences.  The  real  sharp 
ers  took  greenbacks  and  kept  their  names  off 
paper.  Do  you  suppose  that  the  committee  is 
raking  up  the  Subfluvial  to  the  bottom  ?  Why, 
our  very  first  move,  the  mere  getting  our  charter 
through,  cost  us  half  a  million.  We  have  paid 
out  hundreds  of  thousands  to  men  against  whom 
we  haven't  a  particle  of  proof  beyond  our  verbal 
statements." 

"  Exactly,"  nodded  Vane,  who  had  long  since 
heard  as  much.  "  Well,  do  you  mean  to  swear  in 
these  things  ?" 

"Of  course  we  don't,"  Dorman  chuckled. 
"  We  know  enough  not  to  kill  the  goose  that  lays 
our  golden  e 


254  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

"  So  much  the  worse  for  the  Greatheart  lot," 
inferred  Weathercock  John.  "  They  will  have  to 
go  out,  I  suppose." 

"Don't  you  believe  it,"  scoffed  the  lobbyist. 
"  I  can  tell  you  exactly  how  this  thing  is  sure  to 
come  out.  There  will  be  a  one-legged  report, — 
somebody  giving  bribes,  but  none  of  the  takers 
guilty  of  being  bribed, — like  a  gambling  case  in 
which  only  one  of  the  players  is  a  gambler. 
Then,  if  the  public  excitement  keeps  up,  a  couple 
or  so  will  be  picked  out  as  scapegoats,  to  bear 
off  the  sins  of  the  congregation.  This  report 
will  be  so  manifestly  unfair  that  it  can't  help 
rousing  opposition.  As  soon  as  it  appears,  a 
debate  will  be  arranged.  All  the  old  war-horses 
will  gallop  up  and  down  among  charges,  counter 
charges,  precedents,  and  points  of  law,  raising 
such  a  dust  that  the  public  won't  be  able  to  see 
what  is  going  on.  When  the  dust  clears  away,  it 
will  be  found  that  nobody  is  expelled.  The  two 
scapegoats  will  be  almost  expelled,  but  not  quite. 
It  will  be  like  the  pig  going  through  the  crooked 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  255 

hollow  log  and  always  coming  out  on  his  own  side 
of  the  fence.  Then  the  wire-pullers  at  home  will 
take  a  hand  in  the  job.  All  the  convicted  chaps 
will  have  receptions  got  up  for  them  in  their 
districts,  and  be  whitewashed  all  over  with  reso 
lutions  expressing  unshaken  confidence.  You 
won't  have  any  reception,  John.  You  are  not 
far  gone  enough  to  need  such  vigorous  treatment. 
Your  case  is  lobby  varioloid,  instead  of  lobby 
small-pox." 

Vane  felt  somewhat  offended  at  this  plain 
speaking,  for  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  he  had  not 

lost  his  self-esteem ;   but,  looking  at  matters  in 

% 

his  habitual  profit-and-loss  way,  he  decided  that 
wrath  would  brjng  him  in  nothing. 

"  Take  care  of  yourself,  Dorman,"  he  said,  with 

'a  tranquil  good  nature  which  did  him  dishonor. 

"  If  I  owned  a  million  of  your  style  of  property, 

I  shouldn't  feel   rich.     There'll   be  suits  against 

your  inside  corporation." 

"  I'm  out  of  it,"  replied  the  lobbyist,  flashes  of 
cunning  dancing  about  his  sooty  eyes,  as  sparks 


256  HONEST  JOHN    VANE. 

run  over  the  back  of  a  foul  fireplace.  "  I  have 
failed." 

For  the  life  of  him,  a.nd  notwithstanding  the 
long-faced  decorum  which  sham  honesty  requires, 
John  Vane  could  not  help  laughing.  The  fact 
that  a  financier  should  declare  himself  bankrupt 
the  moment  he  saw  himself  in  danger  of  being 
called  on  to  refund  his  swindlings,  did  not  strike 
our  self-taught  legislator  as  a  very  disgusting 
exhibition  of  rascality,  but  as  a  very  amusing  bit 
of  cleverness. 

"  But  you're  going  to  hang  around  here,  I 
hope,"  he  added,  unwilling  to  lose  a  trickster  who 
had  been  helpful,  and  might  be  so  again. 

"  No,  I  am  going  back,"  said  Dorman,  in  a  tone 
which  would  have  been  significant  *bf  forebodings 
and  horrors  to  any  soul  less  carnal  than  a  spare- 
rib.  His  face,  too,  was  strange  ;  it  had  an  un 
usually  seared,  cindered,  and  smoke-stained  look  ; 
one  would  have  said  that  the  cuticle  was  drying 
up  with  inward  heat.  If  that  scorched  envelope 
had  cracked  open,  and  the  creature  within  had 


HONEST  JOHN    VANE.  257 

bounced  forth  in  some  different  hide,  or  in  a 
ra\v-head-and-bloody-bones  state  of  nudity,  there 
would  have  been  no  great  cause  of  wonderment. 
But  Congressman  Vane  saw  nothing  remarkable  ' 
he  simply  inquired,  with  calm,  oleaginous  inter 
est,  "  Going  back  ivhcir.'" 

"  Where  I  came  from,"  grimaced  Dorman,  and 
disappeared  abruptly,  either  by  stepping  briskly 
around  a  corner,  or  by  slipping  under  a  flagstone. 

"Not  in  the  least  disturbed  by  this  singular 
circumstance,  and,  indeed,  altogether  failing  to 
perceive  anything  noteworthy  in  it,  Weathercock 
'John  marched  on  majestically  to  the  Capitol,  and 
commenced  his  day's  work  of  statesmanship. 

Well,  there  he  is  still,  a  lawgiver  to  this  tax- 
. burdened  people,  and  ex-officio  a  director  of  its 
finances.  As  soon  as  he  has  recovered  from  his 
present  slight  scare,  he  will  resume  his  labor 
(the  only  legislative  labor  which  he  knows  much 
about)  of  enacting  the  national  revenue  into  the 
safes  of  huge  corporations  and  into  the  hats  of 
individual  mendicants,  for  the  sake  of  a  small 


258  HONEST   JOHN    VANE. 

percentage  thereof  to  himself.  Can  nothing  be 
done  to  stop  him,  or  at  least  to  shackle  and  limit 
him,  in  his  damaging  industry  ?  Can  we  not 
wrest  from  him  and  from  his  brother  knaves  or 
dunces  this  fearfully  abused  privilege  of  voting 
the  public  money  for  other  objects  than  the 
carrying  on  of  the  departments  of  the  govern 
ment  ?  Can  we  not  withdraw  altogether  from 
Congress  the  power  of  aiding  corporations  and 
schemers  out  of  an  income  which  is  contributed 
by  all  for  the  equal  benefit  of  all  ?  Can  we  not 
provide,  for  instance,  that,  if  a  man  has  a  claim 
for  injuries  to  property  against  the  United  States, 
he  shall  prosecute  that  claim  in  the  courts  ? 

Such  men  as  John  Vane  will  inevitably  find 
their  way  in  numbers  to  the  desks  of  the  Capitol. 
Better  and  wiser  men  than  he  will  be  corrupted 
by  a  lobby  which  has  thoroughly  learned  the 
easy  trick  of  paying  a  hundred  thousand  out  of 
every  stolen  million.  Nothing  in  the  future  is 
more  certain  than  that,  if  this  huge  "  special 


HONEST   JOHN    VANE.  259 

legislation"  machine  for  bribery  is  not  broken 
up,  our  Congress  will  surely  and  quickly  become, 
what  some  sad  souls  claim  that  it  already  is,  a 
den  of  thieves. 


14  D 


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U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


